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THE    JEWS 


By   HILAIRE    BELLOC 


bi*"!^^*?  D^hw 


BOSTON   AND    NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 


/. 


First  Published  1922 


DS 


m  I 

1541 


vi 


To 
MISS  RUBY  GOLDSMITH 

MY     SECRETARY     FOR    MANY     YEARS     AT     KING'S 

LAND  AND  THE  BEST  AND  MOST  INTIMATE  OF 

OUR     JEWISH    FRIENDS,     TO    WHOM    MY 

FAIVULY  AND  I  WILL    ALWAYS    OWE 

A  DEEP  DEBT  OF    GRATITUDE 


PREFACE 

The  object  of  this  book  is  more  modest,  I  fear, 
than  that  of  much  which  has  appeared  upon  that 
vital  political  matter,  the  relation  between  the 
Jews  and  the  nations  around  them. 

It  does  not  propose  any  detailed,  still  less,  any 
positive  legal  solution  to  what  has  become  a  press- 
ing problem,  nor  does  it  pretend  to  any  complete 
solution  of  it.  It  is  no  more  than  a  suggestion 
that  any  attempt  to  solve  this  problem  ought  to 
follow  certain  general  lines  which  are  essentially 
different  from  those  attempted  in  Western  Europe 
during  the  time  immediately  preceding  our  own. 
I  suggest  that,  if  the  present  generation  in  both 
parties  to  the  discussion,  the  Jews  and  ourselves, 
will  drop  convention  and  make  a  principle  of 
discussing  the  problem  in  terms  of  reality,  we  shall 
automatically  approach  a  right  solution. 

We  have  but  to  tell  the  truth  in  the  place  of  the 
falsehoods  of  the  last  generation.  Therefore,  of 
the  three  principles  upon  which  this  essay  reposes, 
the  principle  that  concealment  must  come  to  an  end 
seems  to  me  more  important  than  the  principle  of 
mutual  recognition,  or  even  the  principle  of  mutual 
respect.  For  it  may  well  be  that  my  judgment  is 
at  fault  in  the  matter  of  Jewish  national  conscious- 
ness ;    it  may  well  be  that  I  exaggerate  it,  and  it 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

is  certain  that  one  party  to  a  debate  cannot  be 
possessed  of  the  full  knowledge  required  for  its 
settlement;  the  other  side  must  be  heard.  But 
neither  my  judgment  nor  the  judgment  of  any  man 
can  be  at  fault  on  the  value  of  truth  and  the 
ultimate  evil  consequences  of  trying  to  build  upon 
a  lie. 

The  English  reader  (less,  I  think,  the  American) 
will  often  find  in  my  sentences  a  note  that  will 
seem  to  him  fantastic.  The  quarrel  is  already 
acute  here  in  London,  but  it  has  not  here  approached 
the  limits  which  it  has  reached  long  ago  elsewhere ; 
and  a  man  accustomed  to  the  quieter  air  in  which 
all  public  affairs  have,  until  recently,  been  debated 
in  this  country,  may  smile  at  what  will  seem  to 
him  odd  and  exaggerated  fears.  To  this  I  would 
reply  that  the  book  has  been  written  not  only  in 
the  light  of  English,  but  of  a  general,  experience. 
I  will  bargain  that  were  it  put  into  the  hands  of  a 
jury  chosen  from  the  various  nationalities  of  Europe 
and  the  United  States  it  would  be  found  too  mod- 
erate in  its  estimate  of  the  peril  it  postulates.  I 
would  further  ask  the  reader,  who  may  not  have 
appreciated  how  rapidly  the  peril  approaches,  to 
consider  the  distance  traversed  in  the  last  few 
years.  It  is  not  very  long  since  a  mere  discussion 
of  the  Jewish  question  in  England  was  impossible. 
It  is  but  a  few  years  since  the  mere  admission  of  it 
appeared  abnormal.  The  truth  is  that  this  ques- 
tion is  not  one  which  we  open  or  close  at  will  in 
any  European  nation.  It  is  imposed  successively 
upon  one  nation  after  another  by  the  force  of 
things.  It  is  this  force  of  things,  this  necessity 
for  national  well-being,  and  for  the  warding  off  of 
disorder,  which  has  thrust  the  Jewish  question 


PREFACE  ix 

to-day  upon  a  society  still  reluctant  to  consider  it 
and  still  hoping  it  may  return  to  its  old  neglect. 
It  cannot  so  return. 

I  will  conclude  by  asking  my  Jewish,  as  well  as 
my  non- Jewish,  readers  to  observe  that  I  have  left 
out  every  personal  allusion  and  every  element  of 
mere  recrimination.  I  have  carefully  avoided  the 
mention  of  particular  examples  in  public  life  of  the 
friction  between  the  Jews  and  ourselves  and  even 
examples  drawn  from  past  history.  With  these  I 
could  often  have  strengthened  my  argument,  and 
I  would  certainly  have  made  my  book  a  great  deal 
more  readable.  I  have  left  out  everything  of  the 
kind  because,  though  one  can  always  rouse  interest 
in  this  way,  it  excites  enmity  between  the  opposing 
parties.  Since  my  object  is  to  reduce  that  enmity, 
which  has  already  become  dangerous,  I  should  be 
insincere  indeed  if  from  mere  purpose  of  enlivening 
this  essay  I  had  stooped  to  exasperate  feeling. 

I  could  have  made  the  book  far  stronger  as  a 
piece  of  polemic  and  indefinitely  more  amusing 
as  a  piece  of  record,  but  I  have  not  written  it  as  a 
piece  of  polemic  or  as  a  piece  of  record.  I  have 
written  it  as  an  attempt  at  justice. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  I 
The  Thesis  of  this  Book 3 

The  Jews  are  an  alien  body  within  the  society  they 
inhabit— hence  irritation  and  friction — a  problem  is 
presented  by  the  strains  thus  set  up — the  solution  of 
that  problem  is  urgently  necessary. 

An  alien  body  in  any  organism  is  disposed  of  in  one 
of  two  ways :    elimination  and  segregation. 

Elimination  may  be  by  destruction,  by  excretion  or 
by  absorption — in  the  case  of  the  Jews  the  first  is  abomin- 
able and,  further,  has  failed — -the  second  means  exile : 
it  has  also  failed — the  tliird,  absorption,  the  most  pro- 
bable and  most  moral,  has  failed  throughout  the  past, 
though  having  everything  in  its  favour. 

There  remains  segregation,  which  may  be  of  two 
forms  :  hostile  to,  or  careless  of,  the  alien  body,  or  friendly 
to  it  and  careful  of  its  good — in  this  latter  form  it  may 
best  be  called  Recognition.  The  first  kind  of  segregation 
has  often  been  attempted  in  history — it  has  been  par- 
tially successful  over  long  periods — but  has  always  left 
behind  it  a  sense  of  injustice  and  has  not  really  solved 
the  problem — also  it  has  always  failed  in  the  end. 

The  true  solution  is  in  the  second. kind  of  segregation, 
that  is,  recognition  on  both  sides  of  a  separate  Jewish 
nationality. 

CHAPTER  II 

The  Denial  of  the  Problem 17 

In  the  immediate  past  the  problem  was  shirked  in 
Western  Europe  by  a  mere  denial  of  its  existence — some 
were  honestly  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  a  Jewish 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

nation — some  thought  the  difference  one  of  rehgion 
only — more  admitted  the  existence  of  a  separate  nation 
but  thought  a  convenient  fiction,  that  it  did  not  exist, 
necessary  to  the  modern  state. 

This  ignorance  or  fiction  has  broken  down  in  our  own 
time — partly  through  the  necessary  reaction  of  truth 
against  any  falsehood — partly  through  the  increasing 
numbers  of  the  Jews  in  Western  countries — more  through 
the  great  increase  of  their  power. 

Yet,  though  this  old  "  Liberal  "  fiction  about  the 
Jews  is  dead,  having  proved  unworkable  in  the  face  of 
fact,  it  had  something  to  be  said  for  it — it  secured  peace 
for  a  while — it  chose  models  from  the  past — and  it  was 
based  on  a  certain  truth,  to  wit,  that  the  Jew  takes  on 
very  rapidly  the  superficial  characters  of  the  nation  in 
which  he  happens  for  the  time  to  be  living — moreover  it 
was  desired  by  the  Jews  themselves — example  of  the 
old  Jewish  Peer  and  his  claim  "to  be  let  alone " — 
practical  proof  of  the  failure  in  his  case. 

At  any  rate  the  old  "Liberal"  fiction  is  now  quite 
useless — the  problem  is  admitted  and  must  be  solved. 

CHAPTER  III 
The  Present  Phase  op  the  Problem      ...      43 

The  Jewish  problem,  present  throughout  history,  has 
assumed  a  particular  character  to-day — it  is  the  char- 
acter of  a  sharp  reaction  against  the  old  pretence  that 
Jews  were  identical  with  the  nations  in  which  they 
happened  to  five — it  first  took  the  form  of  irritation 
only — it  was  suddenly  exasperated  in  a  very  high  degree 
by  the  Jewish  revolution  in  Russia — but  long  before 
this  the  increasing  power  of  Jews  in  pubMc  fife,  the  anti- 
Semitic  writing  on  the  Continent,  the  Dreyfus  agitation, 
the  South  African  War,  and  the  Jewish  leadership  of 
SociaUsm  had  prepared  the  way — The  situation  on  the 
outbreak  of  the  Great  War — Bolshevism — a  short 
»  description  to  be  expanded  in  a  later  chapter — Bolshe- 
vism is  o  Jewish  movement,  hut  not  a  movernent  of  the 
Jewish  race  as  a  whole — its  particular  effect  was  to 
release  criticism  of  Jewish  power  which  had  hitherto 
been  silent  from  fear  of,  or  sympathy  with,  Capitahsm. 
Men  hesitated  to  attack  the  Jews  as  financiers  because 
the  stability  of  society  and  of  their  own  fortunes  was 
bound  up  with  finance — but  when  a  body  of  Jews  also 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAGE 
appeared  as  the  active  enemies  of  existing  society  and  of 
private  fortune,  the  restraint  was  removed — since  the 
Bolshevist  movement  open  (and  hostile)  discussion  of 
the  Jewish  problem  has  become  universaL 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  General  Causes  of  Friction  ....      69 

The  strain  between  Jewry  and  its  hosts  in  Islam  and 
Christendom  much  older  than  any  modern  cause  can 
account  for— the  true  causes  are  both  general  and  par- 
ticular-— I  call  those  general  which  are  ineradicable  and 
proceed  from  the  contrasting  natures  of  the  two  races, 
particular  those  which  depend  upon  the  wiU  on  either 
side  and  can  be  modified  to  the  advantage  of  both. 

The  general  cause  of  friction  being  a  contrast  in  funda- 
mental character,  we  note  that  the  common  accusations 
brought  against  Jews  are  false,  as  are  the  common  praises 
given  him  by  those  not  of  the  race. — In  each  case  what  has 
to  be  noted  is  not  a  series  of  virtues  or  vices  special  to 
the  Jew,  but  the  racial  character  or  tone  of  each  quality. 

These  examined — the  Jewish  courage — examples — 
the  Jewish  generosity — the  strength  of  Jewish  patriotism 
— the  consequent  indifference  to  our  national  feehngs — 
accusations  arising  therefrom,  especially  in  time  of  war — • 
the  Jewish  power  of  concentration — ^of  eloquence- — ^the 
Jewish  tendency  to  "  push  "  a  Jewish  success  and  hide 
a  Jewish  failure  or  danger — the  evil  effects  of  this  ten- 
dency in  our  mutual  relations. 

The  poverty  of  the  Jewish  people — false  effect  produced 
by  a  few  great  Jewish  fortunes — the  instabihty  of  these — 
cringing  of  wealthy  Europeans  to  Jewish  money-dealers 
— dependence  of  our  politicians  on  wealthy  Jews — evil 
effect  of  this  in  the  attempt  to  regulate  domestic  affairs 
of  Eastern  Europe. 

The  ill  effect  of  the  partially  Jewish  financial  monopoly 
— especially  with  ParUamentary  corruption  as  pro- 
nounced as  it  is  to-day. 

CHAPTER  V 
The  Special  Causes  op  Friction     ....      99 

I  have  called  "  Special "  causes  of  Friction  those 
which  are  remedial  at  will  by  either  party — they  would 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAGE 
seem  to  be,  on  the  Jewish  side,  the  habit  of  secrecy  and 
the  habit  of  expressing  a  sense  of  superiority — on  our 
side  a  disingenuousness  and  unintclHgence  in  our  treat- 
ment of  Jews  and  a  lack  of  charity. 

The  deplorable  Jewish  habit  of  secrecy — the  use  of 
false  names — examples — excuses  for  same  not  adequate 
— a  regular  code  of  such  names  which  deceive  us  but  can 
be  decoded  by  fellow  Jews. 

The  expression  of  superiority  by  the  Jew — our  states- 
manship has  never  sufficiently  allowed  for  it — examples 
of  this  expression — Jewish  interference  in  our  religion — 
or  national  quarrels — and  other  departments  which  are 
ahen  to  Jewish  interests — on  the  other  hand  this  quahty 
has  been  a  preservation  of  the  race — the  Jew  should 
note  the  corresponding  sense  of  superiority  on  our  side — 
even  the  poor  hack-writer,  if  he  be  of  European  blood, 
feels  himself  superior  to  the  Jewish  millionaire. 

CHAPTER  VI 
The  Cause  of  Friction  upon  our  Side  .         .         .     123 

Tliis  department  of  our  inquiry  often  neglected 
through  an  error — it  is  presumed  that,  because  we  are 
the  hosts  and  the  Jew  alien  to  us,  no  responsibility  falls 
on  us — this  error  forgets  that  the  Jew  is  permanently 
with  us  and  that  every  permanent  human  relation 
involves  responsibihty. 

The  first  cause  of  friction  on  our  side  is  disingenuous- 
ness in  our  deaUngs  with  the  Jew — examples  of  this — ■ 
we  conceal  from  the  Jew  our  real  feelings — we  deceive 
him — the  richer  classes  who  intermarry  with  Jews  and 
enter  into  business  partnership  with  them  especially 
to  blame — the  populace  more  straightforward — this 
deceiving  of  the  Jew  leaves  him  troubled  when  the  quarrel 
comes  to  a  head — he  has  not  heard  what  is  said  beliind 
his  back. 

Disingenuousness  in  our  suppression  of  the  Jewish 
problem  in  history — gross  examples  of  it  in  contemporary 
life  and  particularly  in  the  popular  press — Jews  called 
"Russians,"  "  Germans,"  anything  but  what  they  are. 

Unintelligence  a  second  cause  of  friction— example : 
our  treatment  of  Jewish  immigration — we  hate  it,  yet 
allow  it  because  we  dare  not  give  it  its  right  name — 
unintelligent  treatment  of  the  Jew  in  fiction — unintelli- 
gence in  our  astonishment  at  his  international  position — 


CONTENTS  XV 

PAGE 
example  of  the  cabinet  minister's  cousin  who  got  into 
trouble. 

Last  cause,  lack  of  charity — people  won't  put  them- 
selves in  the  shoes  of  the  Jew  and  see  how  things  look 
from  his  side — we  do  not  (as  we  should)  mix  with  Jews 
of  every  class  and  address  their  societies — Summary — ■ 
A  warning  against  the  idea  that  the  friction  between  the 
Jews  and  ourselves  is  unimportant — it  has  bred  catas- 
trophe in  the  past  and  may  in  the  future. 

CHAPTER  VII 
The  Anti-Semite 145 

Error  of  neglecting  to  study  Anti-Semitism  on  account 
of  its  extravagance — it  is  a  most  significant  thing,  how- 
ever ill-balanced — character  of  the  Anti-Semite — he  does 
not  recognize  a  Jewish  problem  to  be  solved  but  only  a 
Jewish  race  to  be  hated — this  hatred  his  whole  motive — 
his  self-contradictions — his  delusion — his  strength — the 
press  still  on  the  whole  boycotts  the  Anti-Semitic  move- 
ment— but  it  is  growing  prodigiously — its  great  power 
of  documentation — its  vast  accumulation  of  evidence — 
effect  this  will  have  when  it  comes  out. 

The  Jews  met  Anti-Semitism  by  nothing  but  ridicule — 
this  weapon  insufficient  and  bound  to  fail — their  enemies 
have  countered  it  by  accumulating  facts — the  latter  a 
much  stronger  weapon  so  long  as  the  erroneous  Jewish 
pohcy  of  secrecy  is  maintained. 

Danger  to  the  Jews  of  the  Anti-Semitic  movement — 
(1)  because  of  its  intensity — (2)  because  of  its  formidable 
accumulation  of  evidence,  which  cannot  be  permanently 
suppressed — (3)  and  most  important,  because  it  is 
aUied  to  a  now  widespread  and  more  moderate,  but  very 
hostile,  feehng,  to  which  it  acts  as  spear-head. 

CHAPTER  VIII 
Bolshevism 167 

The  revolution  in  Russia  will  be  the  historical  point  of 
departure  whence  will  date  the  renewed  hostility  to  the 
Jew  in  Western  Europe. 

Examination  of  that  revolution — it  was  (as  said  in 
Chapter  III)  "  a  Jewish  movement,  hut  not  a  moiement 
of  the  Jewish  race:"  importance  of  this  distinction — 


xvi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 
unfortunately  the  two  different  terms  "Jewish  race" 
and  "  a  Jewish  movement  "  are  confused  in  the  popular 
mind. 

The  Revolution  not  the  result  of  an  accident  or  of  a 
universal  plot — element  of  racial  revenge — -the  Jew  not 
a  revolutionary — special  character  of  the  Russian  situa- 
tion— Industrial  Capitahsm,  the  great  evil  of  our  time, 
there  recent  and  weak — therefore  open  to  special  attack 
— an  international  evil — the  only  two  international 
forces  appHcable  were  the  Jews  and  the  Cathohc  Church 
— why  the  Cathohc  Church  cannot  directly  attack  indus- 
trial Capitahsm — why  the  Jew  who  happens  to  be  opposed 
to  it  can  and  does  directly  attack  it — neither  our  instinct 
for  property  nor  our  Nationahsm  an  obstacle  in  his 
case. 

Grave  perils  to  the  Jew  arise  from  his  identification 
with  Bolshevism — the  more  reason  to  meet  these  perils 
by  a  sane  treatment  of  the  Jewish  problem. 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  Position  in  the  World  as  a  Whole       .        .     189 

The  Jewish  problem  varies  (1)  according  to  the  extent 
to  which  Jews  have  acquired  control  and  domination  in 
various  places ;  (2)  according  to  the  tradition  of  each 
community  in  approaching  the  problem;  (3)  according  to 
the  strength  in  each  community  of  the  four  international 
forces,  which  are  the  Cathohc  Church,  Islam,  Industrial 
Capitahsm,  and  the  Sociahst  revolt  against  this  last. 

The  individual  Jew  does  not  feel  that  he  is  in  a  position 
of  control  or  even  that  he  is  interfering  with  his  hosts — 
yet  that  is  the  universal  complaint  against  him — it  is  a 
corporate  or  collective  power — more  and  more  resented. 

The  position  in  Russia — repeated — in  the  Marches  of 
Russia  and  Roumania  and  Poland — in  Central  Europe — • 
in  Occidental  Europe — Ireland  an  exception. 

The  position  in  the  United  States — Mr.  Ford  and  the 
great  effect  of  his  action. 

The  Western  tradition  more  favourable  to  the  Jews 
than  the  Eastern— problem  of  the  Jews  and  Islam — 
position  of  the  Cathohc  Church — effect  of  Industrial 
Capitahsm  and  of  its  converse,  Sociahsm,  upon  the 
problem. 


CONTENTS  xvii 

CHAPTER  X 

PAGE 

The  Position  of  the  Jews  in  Engl^^nd  .         .         .     215 

England  has  gone  to  both  extremes  with  the  Jew. 
The  Jew  in  the  Roman  time  and  in  the  Middle  Ages 
— his  monopoly  of  Usury  in  early  Middle  Ages — The 
exile  of  all  Enghsh  Jews  under  Edward  I — -their  return 
under  CromweU — followed  by  a  gro^^^ng  alliance  between 
the  English  State  and  the  Jews — largely  due  to  cosmo- 
pohtan  commercial  interests  of  Britain — also  to  common 
hostiUty  towards  the  Catholic  Church — aided  by  great 
wealth  and  security  of  this  country — -in  the  later  nine- 
teenth century  the  Jews,  in  spite  of  their  small  numbers, 
colour  every  English  institution,  especially  the  Univer- 
sities and  the  House  of  Commons — the  interests  of  the  » 
two  races  began  to  diverge  before  the  Great  War — none 
the  less  a  formal  alliance  maintained  through  the  control 
of  the  poUticians  by  Jewish  finance — its  culmination  in 
the  attempt  to  form  an  Anglo-Judaic  state  in  Palestine. 

CHAPTER  XI 
Zionism 231 

The  chief  interest  of  the  Zionist  experiment  lies  in  its 
reaction  upon  the  international  position  of  the  Jew — 
yet  that  point  is  not  yet  discussed — what  wiU  be  the 
effect  of  the  experiment  on  the  position  of  Jews  outside 
Palestine,  necessarily  the  vast  majority  of  the  race  ? — 
an  inevitable  alternative — either  the  Jews  lose  their 
international  position  through  loss  of  the  fiction  that 
they  are  not  a  nation — or  the  Zionist  experiment  breaks 
down — effect  especially  in  Eastern  Europe. 

Special  effect  of  the  experiment  on  Great  Britain — 
difficulty  of  maintaining  sacrifice  for  purely  Jewish 
interests — which  now  clash  with  British — unpopularity  * 
of  such  sacrifice  inevitable — ^grave  error  of  first  appoint- 
ment to  the  headship  of  the  New  State — unworthiness  of 
the  politician  chosen  for  that  position. 

CHAPTER  XII 
Our  Duty 249 

This  but  a  consequence  of  the  conditions  established  in 
Chapters  IV,  V  and  VI — our  double  duty  of  mixing  with 


xviii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

the  Jews  and  of  recognizing  their  separate  nationality — 
necessitj^  of  openly  admitting  this  separate  nationality 
in  conversation  and  social  habits — in  spite  of  difficulties 
opposed  by  convention — in  this  the  wealthier  classes 
should  follow  the  lead  of  the  populace — folly  and  danger 
of  Fear  in  this  matter — the  fear  of  Jewish  power  a 
degrading  and  exasperating  thing  to  the  European — 
delay  makes  it  worse — our  plain  duty  is  to  recognize 
this  aHen  nation,  to  respect  it,  and  to  treat  it  frankly  as 
we  do  every  nationahty  other  than  one's  own. 

CHAPTER  XIII 
Their  Duty 271 

Only  a  brief  mention — for  interference  or  advice  in 
domestic  concerns  of  Jewry  would  be  an  impertinence — 
but  it  is  clear  that  all  specially  Jewish  institutions  favour 
the  right  policy  for  which  I  plead — those  already  in 
existence — schools,  newspapers,  Jewish  societies — all 
increase  of  these  institutions  should  be  welcome,  because 
they  emphasize  and  make  clear  the  separate  nationality 
of  the  Jew. 

CHAPTER  XIV 
Various  Theories 277 

This  chapter  is  a  digression  on  the  various  theories  on  the 
Jewish  race  and  its  fortunes  which  have  arisen  in  history 
and  some  of  which  are  still  present. 

The  theory  that  reconciliation  is  impossible — its 
attachment  to  the  idea  of  a  special  curse  or  blessing. 

The  theory  of  a  mysterious  necessary  alliance  between 
'      Israel  and  Britain— its  most  extravagant  forms. 

The  theory  that  the  Jews  are  the  necessary  fitix  of 
Europe,  without  which  our  energies  would  decline — 
note  on  the  intellectual  independence  of  the  Jew  and 
on  his  original  effect  on  our  thought — demand  for  a 
Jewish  history  of  Europe  and  Islam  combined. 

The  theory  that  the  Jewish  problem  is  domestic  only 
and  no  concern  of  ours — its  error,  since  the  relations  are 
mutual. 

The  two  theories  of  the  Jew  as  a  malignant  enemy 
of  our  innocent  selves,  and  of  our  malignant  enmity 


CONTENTS  xix 

PAGE 

against  the  innocent  and  martyred  Jew — both  erroneous. 

The  theory  that  the  Jewisli  problem  is  notv  solving 
itself  by  absorption — this  theory  false  and  due  to  a 
misunderstanding  of  history  and  a  neglect  of  acute 
modern  and  recent  differentiation — Mr.  Ford's  epigram 
on  "the  melting-pot." 

Fantastic  theory  that  no  Jewish  national  type  exists  !  > 

CHAPTER  XV 
Conclusion.    Habit  or  Law  ? 301 

Granted  that  the  solution  I  advance  (a  full  recog- 
nition of  separate  nationality)  is  the  just  solution,  should 
it  be  expressed  in  law  ? — Not,  I  think,  until  it  has  first 
appeared  in  our  morals  and  social  conventions — to  begin 
with  laws  and  regulations  on  our  side  would  inevitably 
breed  oppression — but  the  suggestion  of  separate  insti- 
tutions coming  from  the  Jewish  side  should  be  welcomed 
— urgency  of  a  settlement — modern  quarrels  are  growing 
fiercer,  not  less — but  for  my  part  I  say,  "  Peace  to 
Israel." 


THE  THESIS  OF  THIS  BOOK 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  THESIS  OF  THIS  BOOK 

It  is  the  thesis  of  this  book  that  the  continued 
presence  of  the  Jewish  nation  intermixed  with 
other  nations  alien  to  it  presents  a  permanent 
problem  of  the  gravest  character :  that  the  wholly 
different  culture,  tradition,  race  and  religion  of 
Europe  make  Europe  a  permanent  antagonist  to 
Israel,  and  that  the  recent  and  rapid  intensification 
of  that  antagonism  gives  to  the  discovery  of  a 
solution  immediate  and  highly  practical  impor- 
tance. 

For  if  the  quarrel  is  allowed  to  rise  unchecked 
and  to  proceed  unappeased,  we  shall  come,  unex- 
pectedly and  soon,  upon  one  of  these  tragedies 
which   have   marked   for   centuries   the   relations 
between  this  peculiar  nation  and  ourselves. 

The  Jewish  problem  is  one  to  which  no  true 
parallel  can  be  found,  for  the  historical  and  social 
phenomenon  which  has  produced  it  is  unique.  It 
is  a  problem  which  cannot  be  shirked,  as  the  last 
generation  both  of  Jews  and  of  their  hosts  attempted 
to  shirk  it.  It  is  a  problem  which  cannot  be 
avoided,  nor  even  lessened  (as  can  some  social 
problems),  by  an  healing  effect  of  time:  for  it  is 
increasing  before  our  eyes.  It  must  be  met  and 
dealt  with  openly  and  now. 

3 


4  THE  JEWS 

That  problem  is  the-  problem  of  reducing  or 
accommodating  the  strain  produced  by  the  presence 
of  an  alien  body  within  any  organism.  The  alien 
body  sets  up  strains,  or,  to  change  the  metaphor, 
produces  a  friction,  which  is  evil  both  to  itself  and 
to  the  organism  which  it  inhabits.  The  problem 
is,  how  to  relax  those  strains  for  good  and  to  set 
things  permanently  at  their  ease  again. 

There  are  two  ways  to  such  a  desirable  end. 

The  first  is  by  the  elimination  of  what  is  alien. 
The  second  is  by  its  segregation.  There  is  no  other 
way. 

The  elimination  of  an  alien  body  may  take  three 
forms.  It  may  take  a  frankly  hostile  form — elimina- 
tion by  destruction.  It  may  take  a  form,  also 
hostile  but  less  hostile — elimination  by  expulsion. 
It  may  take  a  third  form,  an  amicable  one  (and 
that  far  the  most  commonly  found  in  the  natural 
process  of  physical  nature  and  of  society) — elimina- 
tion by  absorption;  the  alien  body  becomes  an 
indistinguishable  part  of  the  organism  in  which  it 
was  originally  a  source  of  disturbance  and  is  lost 
in  it.  These  three  ways  sum  up  the  first  method, 
the  method  of  elimination. 

The  second  method,  if  elimination  shall  prove 
impossible  or  undesirable,  is  that  of  segregation; 
and  this  again  may  be  of  two  kinds — hostile  and 
amicable.  We  may  segregate  the  alien  element 
without  regard  to  its  own  ends  or  desires:  the 
segregation  of  it  being  upon  a  plan  framed  solely 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  organism  invaded, 
and  the  reduction  of  the  strain  or  friction  it  creates 
effected  by  the  mere  cutting  of  it  off  from  all  avenues 
through  which  it  can  affect  its  host. 

But  we  may  also  segregate  the  alien  irritant  by 


THE  THESIS  OF  THIS  BOOK  5 

an  action  which  takes  full  account  of  the  thing 
segregated  as  well  as  of  the  organism  segregating 
it,  and  considers  the  good  of  both  parties.  In  this 
second  and  amicable  policy  the  word  segregation 
(which  has  a  bad  connotation)  may  be  replaced 
by  the  word  recognition. 

This  book  has  been  written  under  the  conception 
that  all  solutions  of  the  Jewish  problem  other  than 
this  last  are  either  impracticable,  or  bad  in  morals, 
or  both. 

It  is  written  to  advocate  a  policy  wherein  the 
Jews  on  their  side  shall  openly  recognize  their 
wholly  separate  nationality  and  we  on  ours  shall 
equally  recognize  that  separate  nationality,  treat 
it  without  reserve  as  an  alien  thing,  and  respect  it 
as  a  province  of  society  outside  our  own. 

It  is  written  under  the  conviction  that  any 
attitude  which  falls  short  of  this  policy  or  is  very 
different  from  it  will  now  soon  breed  disaster. 

The  solution  by  way  of  destruction  is  not  only 
abominable  in  morals  but  has  proved  futile  in 
practice.  It  has  been  the  constant  temptation  of 
angry  popular  masses  in  the  past,  when  the  Jewish 
problem  has  come  to  a  head  not  once  but  a 
thousand  times  in  various  parts  of  our  civilization 
during  the  last  twenty  centuries.  From  the  pitiless 
massacres  of  Cyrenaica  in  the  second  century  to 
the  latest  murders  in  the  Ukraine  that  solution  has 
been  attempted  and  has  failed.  It  has  invariably 
left  behind  it  a  dreadful  inheritance  of  hatred  upon 
the  one  side  and  of  shame  upon  the  other.  It  has 
been  condemned  by  every  man  whose  judgment  is 
worth  considering  and  especially  by  the  great  moral 
teachers  of  Christendom.  It  is,  indeed,  hardly  a 
policy  at  all,  for  it  is  blind.     It  is  a  gesture  of 


6  THE  JEWS 

mere  exasperation  and  not  a  final  gesture  at  that. 

The  second  form  of  elimination — expulsion — 
though  theoretically  sustainable  (for  a  community 
has  a  right  to  organize  its  own  life  and  no  aliens 
therein  have  a  claim  to  modify  that  life  or  to  disturb 
it),  is  none  the  less  in  practice,  and  as  regards  this 
particular  problem,  only  one  degree  less  odious  than 
the  first.  It  means  inevitably  a  mass  of  individual 
injustice,  as  well  as  common  spoliation  and  every 
other  hardship.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  dis- 
sociate it  from  violence  and  ill  deeds  of  all  kinds. 
It  leaves  behind  it  almost  as  strong  an  inheritance, 
if  not  of  shame  on  the  one  side,  at  any  rate  of 
rancour  upon  the  other,  as  does  the  first.  And 
what  condemns  it  finally  is  that  it  is  not,  and  cannot 
be,  complete. 

For  it  is  in  the  nature  of  the  Jewish  problem  that 
this  solution  is  only  attempted  at  moments  and  in 
places  where  the  strength  of  the  Jews  has  declined ; 
and  this  invariably  means  their  corresponding 
strength  in  some  other  quarter. 

A  particular  society  attempting  this  solution  of 
expulsion  may  succeed  for  a  time  so  far  as  itself 
is  concerned,  but  that  inevitably  means  the  recep- 
tion of  the  exiled  body  by  another  district,  and, 
sooner  or  later,  the  return  of  the  force  which  it  was 
hoped  to  be  rid  of.  The  greatest  historical  example 
of  this  is,  of  course,  the  action  of  the  English.  The 
English  alone  of  all  Christian  nations  did  adopt 
this  solution  in  its  entirety.  A  strong  national 
kingship,  a  government  highly  organized  for  its 
time,  an  insular  position  and  a  singular  unanimity 
of  national  purpose  promoted  the  expulsion  of  the 
Jews  from  England  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
century ;    for  more  than  three  and  a  half  centuries 


THE  THESIS  OF  THIS  BOOK  7 

that  expulsion  was  maintained,  and  England  alone 
of  the  various  divisions  of  Christendom  was  in 
theory  free  of  the  alien  element  and  nearly  as  free 
in  practice  as  it  was  in  theory. 

But,  as  we  all  know,  in  the  long  run  the  experi- 
ment broke  down.  The  Jews  were  readmitted  in 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  nowhere 
have  they  come  to  greater  strength  than  in  the 
very  nation  which  attempted  this  solution  of  the 
problem  with  such  drastic  thoroughness  five  hun- 
dred years  ago.  None  of  the  other  parallel  attempts 
up  and  down  Europe  were  of  the  same  thoroughness 
as  the  English  attempt.  Their  failure  came,  there- 
fore, more  quickly.  But  such  failure  would  seem  in 
any  case  to  be  inevitable.  Quite  apart,  therefore, 
from  the  moral  objection  which  attaches  to  it, 
there  is  the  practical  experience  that  a  solution  is 
not  to  be  found  upon  such  lines. 

Lastly,  there  is  elimination  by  absorption.  This 
would  obviously  be  the  most  gentle,  as  it  is  the 
most  evident,  of  all  methods.  It  is  further  a  normal 
and  most  usual  method  of  nature  herself  when  a 
living  organism  has  to  deal  with  disturbance  excited 
by  the  presence  of  an  alien  body.  So  natural  and 
so  obvious  is  it  that  it  has  been  taken  by  many 
men  of  excellent  judgment  upon  both  sides  as  a 
matter  of  course.  It  has  been  taken  for  granted 
that  if  absorption  has  not  taken  place  in  the  past 
it  has  only  been  due  to  an  ill-will  artificially  nour- 
ished and  maintained  against  the  Jews  on  our  side, 
or  by  the  unreasoning  exclusiveness  of  the  Jews  on 
theirs. 

Even  to-day,  in  spite  of  a  vast  increase  during 
our  own  generation,  both  in  the  public  appreciation 
of  the  problem  and  in  its  immediate  gravity,  there 


8  THE  JEWS 

are  very  many  men  who  still  regard  absorption  as 
the  natural  end  of  the  affair.  These,  though 
dwindling,  are  still  numerous  upon  the  non- Jewish 
side ;  upon  the  other,  the  Jewish  side,  they  are,  I 
think,  a  very  small  body.  For  I  note  that  even  those 
Jews  who  think  absorption  will  come,  admit  it 
with  regret,  and  certainly  the  vast  majority 
would  insist  with  pride  upon  the  certain  survival 
of  Israel. 

But  here  again  I  maintain  that  we  have  the  index 
of  history  against  us.  In  point  of  fact  absorption 
has  not  taken  place.  It  has  had  a  better  chance 
than  any  corresponding  case  can  show :  ample  time 
in  which  to  work,  wide  dispersion,  constant  inter- 
marriage, long  periods  of  tolerant  friendship  for 
the  Jew,  and  even  at  times  his  ascendancy.  If 
ever  there  were  conditions  under  which  one  might 
imagine  that  the  larger  body  would  absorb  the 
smaller,  they  were  those  of  Christendom  acting 
intimately  for  centuries,  in  relation  with  Jewry. 
Nation  after  nation  has  absorbed  larger,  intensely 
hostile  minorities:  the  Irish,  their  successive 
invaders;  the  British,  the  pirates  of  the  fifth 
and  eighth  centuries  and  the  French  of  three  cen- 
turies more ;  the  northern  Gauls,  their  auxiliaries ; 
the  Italians,  the  Lombards ;  the  Greeks,  the  Slav ; 
the  Dacian  has  absorbed  even  the  Mongol :  but  the 
Jew  has  remained  intact. 

However  we  explain  this — mystically  or  in 
whatever  other  fashion — we  cannot  deny  its  truth. 
It  is  true  of  the  Jews,  and  of  the  Jews  alone,  that 
they  alone  have  maintained,  whether  through 
the  special  action  of  Providence  or  through  some 
general  biological  or  social  law  of  which  we  are 
ignorant,  an  unfailing  entity  and  an  equally  unfail- 


THE  THESIS  OF  THIS  BOOK  9 

ing  differentiation  between  themselves  and  the 
society  through  which  they  ceaselessly  move. 

It  is  not  true  that  conditions  in  the  past  differed 
from  present  conditions  sufficiently  to  account 
for  so  strange  a  story.  There  have  been  genera- 
tions and  even  centuries  (not  co- incident  indeed 
throughout  the  world,  but  applying  now  to  one 
country,  now  to  another)  where  every  oppor- 
tunity for  absorption  existed ;  yet  that  absorption 
has  never  taken  place.  There  was  every  chance 
in  Spain  at  one  moment,  in  Poland  at  another, 
but  there  was  the  best  chance  of  all  in  the  short 
but  brilliant  period  of  Liberal  policy  which  has 
dominated  Western  Europe  during  the  last  three 
generations.  That  policy  has  had  the  fullest 
play :  it  has  left  the  Jews  not  only  unabsorbed,  but 
more  differentiated  than  ever,  and  the  political 
problem  they  present  more  insistent  by  far  than 
it  was  a  century  ago. 

The  thing  might  have  come  where  there  was  a 
chaos  of  peoples,  as  in  pagan  Alexandria  in  the 
four  centuries  from  200  b.c  .  to  200  a.  d.  ,  or  in  modern 
New  York.  It  might  have  come  where  there  was 
a  particularly  friendly  attitude,  as  in  mediaeval 
Poland  or  modern  England.  It  might  even  have 
come,  paradoxically,  through  the  very  persecution 
and  strain  of  times  and  places  where  the  Jews 
suffered  the  most  hostile  treatment:  for  their 
absorption  might  have  been  achieved  under  pres- 
sure though  it  had  failed  to  be  achieved  under 
attraction.  As  a  fact  it  has  never  come.  It  has 
never  proved  possible.  The  continuous  absorp- 
tion of  outlying  fractions,  a  process  continually 
going  on  wherever  the  Jewish  nation  is  present, 
has  not  affected  the  mass  of  the  problem  at  all. 


10  THE  JEWS 

The  body  as  a  whole  has  remained  separate,  differ- 
entiated, with  a  strong  identity  of  its  own  under 
all  conditions  and  in  all  places,  and  the  a  'priori 
reasoning,  by  which  men  come  to  think  this  solu- 
tion reasonable,  is  nullified  by  an  experience  appar- 
ent throughout  history.  That  experience  is  wholly 
against  any  such  solution.     It  cannot  be. 

There  remains,  then,  only  the  solution  of  segre- 
gation; a  word  which  (I  repeat)  I  use  in  a  com- 
pletely neutral  manner  though  it  has  unhappily 
obtained  in  this  and  other  issues  a  bad  connotation. 

Segregation,  as  I  have  said,  may  be  of  two  kinds. 
It  may  be  hostile,  a  sort  of  static  expulsion:  a 
putting  aside  of  the  alien  body  without  regard  to 
that  body' s  needs,  desires  or  claims ;  the  build- 
ing of  a  fence  round  it,  as  it  were,  solely  with  the 
object  of  defending  the  organism  which  reacts 
against  invasion,  and  suffers  from  the  presence 
within  it  of  something  different  from   itself. 

Or  it  may  take  an  amicable  form  and  may  be  a 
mutual  arrangement:  a  recognition,  with  mutual 
advantage,  of  a  reality  which  is  unavoidable  by 
either  party. 

The  first  of  these  apparent  solutions  has  been 
attempted  over  and  over  again  throughout  history. 
It  has  had  long  periods  of  partial  success,  but  never 
any  period  of  complete  success ;  for  it  has  invari- 
ably left  behind  it  a  sense  of  injustice  upon  the 
Jewish  side  and  of  moral  ill-ease  upon  the  other. 

There  remains,  I  take  it,  no  practical  or  perma- 
nent solution  but  the  last.  It  is  to  this  conclusion 
that  my  essay  is  meant  to  lead.  If  the  Jewish 
nation  comes  to  express  its  own  pride  and  patriot- 
ism openly,  and  equally  openly  to  admit  the  neces- 
sary limitations  imposed  hy  that  expression  ;    if  we 


THE  THESIS  OF  THIS  BOOK         11 

on  our  side  frankly  accept  the  presence  of  this 
nation  as  a  thing  utterly  different  from  ourselves, 
but  with  just  as  good  a  right  to  existence  as  we 
have ;  if  we  renounce  our  pretences  in  the  matter ; 
if  we  talk  of  and  recognize  the  Jewish  people  freely 
and  without  fear  as  a  separate  body ;  if  upon  both 
sides  the  realities  of  the  situation  are  admitted, 
with  the  consequent  and  necessary  definitions 
which  those  realities  imply,  we  shall  have  peace. 

The  advantage  both  parties — the  small  but 
intense  Jewish  minority,  the  great  non- Jewish 
majority  in  the  midst  of  which  that  minority  acts 
— would  discover  in  such  an  arrangement  is  mani- 
fest. If  it  could  be  maintained — as  I  think  it 
could  be  maintained — the  problem  would  be 
permanently  solved.  At  any  rate,  if  it  cannot  be 
solved  in  that  way  it  certainly  cannot  be  solved 
in  any  other,  and  if  we  do  not  get  peace  by  this 
avenue,  then  we  are  doomed  to  the  perpetual 
recurrence  of  those  persecutions  which  have 
marred  the  history  of  Europe  since  the  first  con- 
solidation of  the  Roman  Empire. 

It  has  been  a  series  of  cycles  invariably  follow- 
ing the  same  steps.  The  Jew  comes  to  an  alien 
society,  at  first  in  small  numbers.  He  thrives. 
His  presence  is  not  resented.  He  is  rather  treated 
as  a  friend.  Whether  from  mere  contrast  in  type — 
what  I  have  called  "friction" — or  from  some 
apparent  divergence  between  his  objects  and  those 
of  his  hosts,  or  through  his  increasing  numbers, 
he  creates  ( or  discovers)  a  growing  animosity.  He 
resents  it.  He  opposes  his  hosts.  They  call 
themselves  masters  in  their  own  house.  The 
Jew  resists  their  claim.     It  comes  to  violence. 

It  is    always    the    same    miserable    sequence. 


12  THE  JEWS 

First  a  welcome ;  then  a  growing,  half- conscious 
ill- ease;  next  a  culmination  in  acute  ill- ease; 
lastly  catastrophe  and  disaster ;  insult,  persecution, 
even  massacre,  the  exiles  flying  from  the  place 
of  persecution  into  a  new  district  where  the  Jew 
is  hardly  known,  where  the  problem  has  never 
existed  or  has  been  forgotten.  He  meets  again 
with  the  largest  hospitality.  There  follows  here 
also,  after  a  period  of  amicable  interfusion,  a 
growing,  half- conscious  ill- ease,  which  next  becomes 
acute  and  leads  to  new  explosions,  and  so  on, 
in  a  fatal  round. 

n  we  are  to  stop  that  wheel  from  its  perpetual 
and  tragic  turning,  there  seems  to  be  no  method 
save  that  for  which  I  plead. 

The  opposition  to  it  is  diverse  and  formidable 
but  can  everywhere  be  reduced  upon  analysis  to 
some  form  of  falsehood.  This  falsehood  takes 
the  shape  of  denying  the  existence  of  the  problem, 
of  remaining  silent  upon  it,  or  of  pretending 
friendly  emotions  in  public  commerce  which  are 
belied  by  every  phrase  and  gesture  admitted  in 
private.  Or  it  takes  the  shape  of  defining  the 
problem  in  false  terms,  in  proclaiming  it  essen- 
tially religious  whereas  it  is  essentially  national. 
Worst  of  all,  it  may  be  that  very  modern  kind  of 
falsehood,  a  statement  of  the  truth  accompanied 
by  a  statement  of  its  contradiction,  like  the  precious 
modern  lie  that  one  can  be  a  patriot  and  at  the 
same  time  international.  In  the  case  of  the  Jews, 
this  particular  modern  lie  takes  the  shape  of  admit- 
ting that  they  are  wholly  alien  to  us  and  different 
from  us,  of  talking  of  them  as  such  and  even  writing 
of  them  as  such,  and  yet,  in  another  connection, 
talking  and  writing  of  them  as  though  no  such 


THE  THESIS  OF  THIS  BOOK         13 

violent  contrast  were  present.  That  pretence  of 
reconciling  contradictions  is  the  lie  in  the  soul. 
Its  punishment  is  immediate,  for  those  who  indulge 
it  are  blinded. 

All  opposition  that  ever  I  have  met  to  the  solu- 
tion here  proposed  is  an  opposition  sprung  from 
the  spirit  of  untruth ;  and  if  there  were  no  other 
argument  in  favour  of  an  honest  and  moral  settle- 
ment of  the  dispute,  the  one  argument  based  on 
Truth  would,  I  think,  be  sufficient.  It  is  a  social 
truth  that  there  is  a  Jewish  nation,  alien  to  us  and 
therefore  irritant.  It  is  a  moral  truth  that  expul- 
sion and  worse  are  remedies  to  be  avoided.  It 
is  an  historical  truth  that  those  solutions  have 
always  ultunately  failed ;  the  recognition  of  those 
three  truths  alone  will  set  us  right. 

Such  is  the  main  thesis  of  this  book,  but  it 
needs  an  addition  if  its  full  spirit  is  to  be  appre- 
hended, and  that  addition  I  have  attempted  to 
express  in  the  last  chapter. 

If  the  solution  I  propose  be  the  right  solution, 
it  yet  remains  to  be  determined  whether  it  should 
first  take  the  form  of  new  laws  from  which  a  new 
spirit  may  be  expected  to  grow,  or  first  take  the 
form  of  a  new  spirit  and  practice  from  which  new 
laws  shall  spring.  The  order  is  of  essential  import- 
ance ;  for  to  mistake  it,  to  reverse  the  true  sequence 
of  cause  and  effect,  is  the  prime  cause  of  failure 
in  all  social  reform. 

As  will  be  seen  by  those  who  have  the  patience 
to  read  to  the  end  of  my  book,  I  have,  in  its  last 
pages,  pleaded  strongly  for  the  second  policy.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  frame  in  our  society,  and 
in  face  of  the  rapidly  rising  tide  of  antagonism 
against  the  Jews,  new  laws  that  would  not  lead 


14  THE  JEWS 

to  injustice.  But  if  it  be  possible  to  create  an 
atmosphere  wherein  the  Jews  are  spoken  of  openly, 
and  they  in  their  turn  admit,  define,  and  accept 
the  consequences  of  a  separate  nationality  in  our 
midst,  then,  such  a  spirit  once  established,  laws 
and  regulations  consonant  to  it  will  naturally  follow. 
But  I  am  convinced  that  the  reversing  of  this 
process  would  only  lead  first  to  confusion  and  next 
to  disaster,  both  for  Israel  and  for  ourselves. 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PROBLEM 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

I  HAVE  stated  the  Problem.  There  is  friction 
between  the  two  races — the  Jews  in  their  dispersion 
and  those  among  whom  they  live.  This  friction 
is  growing  acute.  It  has  led  invariably  in  the 
past  (and  consequently  may  lead  now)  to  the  most 
fearful  consequences,  terrible  for  the  Jew  but 
evil  also  for  us.  Therefore  that  the  problem  is 
immediate,  practical  and  grave.  Therefore  a  solu- 
tion is  imperative. 

But  I  may  be — and  indeed  I  shall  be — met  at 
the  outset  by  the  denial  that  any  such  problem 
exists.  Such  was  the  attitude  of  all  our  immedi- 
ate past;  such  is  the  attitude  of  many  of  the 
best  men  to-day  on  both  sides  of  the  gulf  which 
separates  Israel  from  our  world. 

I  must  meet  this  objection  before  going  further, 
for  if  it  be  sound,  if  indeed  there  is  no  problem 
(save  what  may  be  created  by  ignorance  or  malice), 
then  no  solution  is  demanded.  All  we  have  to 
do  is  to  enlighten  the  ignorant  and  to  repress  the 
malicious :  the  ignorant,  who  imagine  there  is  an 
alien  Jewish  nation  among  them,  the  malicious,  who 
treat  as  though  they  were  alien,  men  who  are,  in  fact, 
exactly  like  ourselves  and  normal  fellow- citizens. 

I  do  not  here  allude  to  the  great  mass  of  conven- 
tion, hypocrisy  and  fear  which  pretends  ignorance 

17  c 


18  THE  JEWS 

of  a  truth  it  well  knaws.  I  am  speaking  of  the 
sincere  conviction,  still  present  in  many — particu- 
larly those  of  the  older  generation — that  no  Jewish 
problem  exists. 

It  is  honestly  denied  by  a  certain  type  of  mind 
that  there  is  any  such  thing  as  a  Jewish  nation ; 
there  can  therefore  be  no  friction  between  it  and 
its  hosts :  the  thing  is  a  delusion.  Let  us  examine 
that  mind  and  see  whether  the  illusion  is  on  our 
side  or  no. 

It  was  the  attitude  familiar  to  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  agreeable  to  that  one  of  its  political 
moods  in  which  it  found  itself  best  satisfied:  the 
negative  attitude  of  leaving  the  Jewish  nation 
unrecognized;  of  creating  a  fiction  of  single 
citizenship  to  replace  the  reality  of  dual  allegiance ; 
of  calling  a  Jew  a  full  member  of  whatever  society 
he  happened  to  inhabit  during  whatever  space  of 
time  he  happened  to  sojourn  there  in  his  wanderings 
across  the  earth.  That  was  the  attitude  agreeable 
on  the  political  side  to  everything  which  called 
itself  "  modern  thought."  Such  was  the  doc- 
trine proposed  by  the  great  men  of  the  French 
Revolution.  Such  was  the  attitude  accepted 
almost  enthusiastically  by  Liberal  England,  that 
is,  by  all  the  dominant  public  life  of  England 
during  the  Victorian  period.  Such  was  the  policy 
which  once  obtained  universal  favour  throughout 
the  whole  of  our  Western  civilization.  That  was 
the  attitude  which  the  West  actually  attempted 
to  impose  upon  Eastern  States,  and  the  last 
effect  of  its  rapidly-declining  credit  is  to  be  found 
in  certain  clauses  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles : 
for  that  attitude  is  still  the  official  attitude  of  all 
our  governments. 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PEOBLEM      19 

In  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  and  the  other  treaties 
following  the  Great  War  the  Jews  of  Eastern  Europe 
were  put  under  a  sort  of  special  protection,  but  not 
in  a  straightforward  and  positive  fashion.  The 
word  "Jew"  was  never  blurted  out — it  was 
replaced  by  the  word  "  minority" — but  the  inten- 
tion was  obvious.  The  underlying  implication 
was :  "  We,  the  Western  governments,  say  there 
is  no  Jewish  problem.  The  idea  of  a  Jewish  nation 
is  a  delusion  and  the  conception  of  the  Jew  as 
something  different  from  a  Pole  or  a  Rumanian 
is  a  mania.  If  you  in  the  East  are  still  benighted 
in  this  matter,  at  any  rate  we  will  prevent  your 
ignorance  or  obsession  from  leading  you  to  persecu- 
tion." The  same  men  who  made  these  declarations 
proceeded  to  erect  a  brand-new  highly- distinct 
Jewish  state  in  Palestine,  with  the  threat  behind 
it  of  ruthlessly  suppressing  a  majority  by  the 
use  of  Western  arms. 

Both  actions  were  the  consequence  of  that  con- 
fused position  I  have  just  defined  (history  will 
call  it  thelast  example),  which,  though  much  weak- 
ened in  public  opinion,  was  still  honestly  taken 
for  granted  by  some  of  the  Parliamentarians  who 
framed  the  Treaty,  and  was  certainly  felt  to  be 
of  personal  advantage  to  all :  the  position  that 
there  is  no  Jewish  nation  when  the  admission  of 
it  may  inconvenience  the  Jew,  but  very  much  of 
a  Jewish  nation  when  it  can  advantage  him. 

Those  who  defended  this  position  did  so  from 
various  standpoints ;  but  these  may  all  be  regarded 
as  so  many  degrees  in  a  certain  way  of  looking  at 
the  Jewish  people.  It  was  till  lately  the  attitude 
of  the  majority  of  educated  Frenchmen,  English- 
men and  Italians.     It  was,  so  to  speak,  the  official 


20  THE  JEWS 

political  attitude  of  -Western  Europe  with  its 
parliamentary  governments  and  other  correspond- 
ing institutions. 

The  most  extreme  form  of  this  opinion  was  to 
be  found  in  people  who  spoke  of  the  Jew  as  nothing 
other  than  a  citizen  with  a  particular  religion.  A 
state  would  be  dominantly  Catholic  or  Protestant, 
but  it  would  contain  smaller  religious  bodies,  eager 
minorities,  for  which  a  place  had  to  be  found,  side 
by  side  with  the  more  or  less  indifferent  majority. 
Catholic  France  had  a  five  per  cent  and  wealthy 
Huguenot  minority.  Protestant  England  had  a 
seven  per  cent  and  poor  Catholic  minority.  Protes- 
tant Holland  had  a  large  minority — more  than  a 
third — of  Catholics,  and  so  forth.  It  had  become 
odious  to  nineteenth  century  thought  that  religious 
differences  ( which  it  regarded  as  nothing  more  than 
shades  of  doubtfully-held  private  opinion)  should 
be  the  concern  of  the  State.  A  large  number  of 
people  thought  of  the  Jews,  not  as  a  race,  but  only 
as  a  religion  ;  and  regarding  all  religion  thus,  they 
concluded  that  it  could  involve  no  diminution  of 
citizenship. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  you  had  public 
men  who  fully  appreciated  the  ultimate  difficulties 
which  would  certainly  arise  from  this  inconclusive 
settlement  of  the  matter.  These  regarded  the 
Jews  as  a  quite  distinct  nationality,  and  even  as 
a  nationality  likely  to  clash  with  the  national 
needs  of  its  hosts;  they  would  even  (in  private) 
express  their  hostility  towards  that  nationality. 
None  the  less,  they  thought  it  must  be  treated  in 
public  life  as  though  it  did  not  exist.  These  men 
were  most  emphatic  in  their  private  letters  and 
conversation — that  the  Jewish  problem  was  not  a 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PROBLEM      21 

religious  but  a  national  one.  Nevertheless  (they 
said)  it  was  necessary  to-day  to  mask  that  problem 
by  a  fiction  and  to  ^pretend  that  the  Jew  was  just 
like  everybody  else  save  for  his  religion.  All 
other  solutions  (they  said)  demanded  a  knowledge 
of  history  and  of  Europe  not  to  be  expected  of  the 
public  at  large ;  again,  the  Jews  were  so  powerful 
that  if  they  desired  the  fiction  to  be  supported  they 
must  be  humoured.  At  any  rate,  recourse  must 
be  had,  in  our  time  at  least,  to  this  make-believe. 

To  the  new  and  already  antagonistic  attitude 
towards  the  Jews  now  rising  so  strongly  everywhere 
throughout  Western  Europe  (which  is  in  part  a 
reaction  from  the  nineteenth  century  position), 
this  old-fashioned  way  of  denying  the  Jewish  race 
or  ignoring  its  existence  by  a  fiction  appears 
morally  odious,  and  we  wonder  to-day  why  it 
commanded  universal  support.  It  involved  a 
falsehood,  of  course,  often  a  conscious  falsehood; 
and  it  was  also  undignified ;  for  there  appears  to 
our  generation  something  as  grotesque  in  denying 
the  existence  of  the  Jewish  nation  as  in  denying 
our  own.  But  that  the  fiction  was  maintained 
sincerely,  and  that  the  grotesque  and  undignified 
side  of  it  went  unperceived,  we  can  assure  ourselves 
in  a  few  moments'  converse  with  any  one  of  that 
older  generation  which  maintained  it  and  still 
represents  it  among  us. 

It  might  have  continued  to  flourish  for  yet 
another  generation,  at  any  rate  among  the  leading 
classes  of  this  commercial  community,  but  for  two 
new  developments  which  broke  it  down,  each 
development  the  result  of  so  large  a  toleration. 
The  first  was  the  growth  of  numbers,  the  second  of 
influence.     What  made  that  old  falsehood  glaring 


22  THE  JEWS 

and  that  old  grotesqua  apparent  was  tlie  enormous 
increase  tlirougliout  all  the  West  of  the  Jewish 
foor,  accompanied  by  the  enormous  increase  of  the 
power  exercised  by  the  Jewish  rich  in  public  affairs. 
Men  grew  angry  at  finding  themselves  pledged  to 
a  pretence  that  Jews  were  not,  when  their  presence 
was  everywhere  unavoidable,  in  the  streets,  and 
in  the  offices  of  government.  The  fiction  was 
possible  when  a  very  few  financiers,  mixed  with 
and  lost  in  the  polite  world,  were  alone  concerned. 
It  became  impossible  in  the  face  of  the  vast  new 
ghettoes  of  London,  Manchester,  Bradford,  Glas- 
gow, and  the  formidable  and  growing  list  of  Jewish 
and  half-Jewish  Ministers,  Viceroys,  ambassadors, 
dictators  of  policy. 

This  contempt  for  and  irritation  with  what  I 
have  called  the  nineteenth  century  attitude,  the 
Liberal  attitude,  was  already  apparent  before  the 
end  of  that  century.  It  was  muttering  during 
the  South  African  war  in  England  and  the  Dreyfus 
case  in  France ;  it  became  vocal  in  the  first  years 
of  this  century,  especially  in  connection  wdth 
parliamentary  scandals  ;  with  the  Bolshevist  rising 
in  1917  it  became  clamorous.  It  will  certainly 
grow.  We  already  have  a  formidable  minority 
prepared  to  act  against  the  interest  of  the  Jew. 
It  will  in  all  probability  become,  and  that  shortly, 
a  majority.  It  may  appear  at  any  moment,  on 
some  critical  occasion,  on  some  new  provocation, 
as  an  overwhelming  flood  of  exasperated  opinion. 

All  the  more  does  it  behove  us  to  treat  the 
old-fashioned  neutrality  and  fiction  fairly;  to 
examine  it  even  with  a  bias  in  its  favour ;  to  set 
down  all  that  can  be  said  in  its  defence  before  we 
reject  it,  as  I  think  we  must  now  all  reluctantly 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PEOBLEM      23 

reject  it.  I  say  "reluctantly";  for  after  all  it 
was  the  fixed  mood  of  our  fathers,  who  did  great 
things :  we  feel  their  reproach  when  we  abandon 
it,  and  there  are  still  present  with  us  very  many  of 
our  elders  to  whom  our  new  anxiety  is  abhorrent. 

We  must  remember  in  the  first  place  that  the 
treating  of  the  Jew  in  the  West  as  no  Jew  at  all, 
but  a  plain  citizen  like  the  rest,  worked  well  enough 
for  a  time.  One  might  almost  say  that  there  was 
no  Jewish  problem  consciously  present  to  the 
mind  of  the  average  educated  Englishman  or 
Frenchman,  Italian,  or  even  western  German, 
between,  say,  the  years  1830  and  1890.  A  very 
small  body  of  Jews  in  England  and  France,  in 
Italy  and  the  rest  of  the  West,  were  vaguely 
associated  with  wealth  in  the  popular  mind;  a 
large  proportion  of  them  were  distinguished  for 
public  work  of  various  kinds ;  many  of  them  with 
beneficence.  The  presence  of  such  men  could 
not  conceivably  lead  to  political  difficulties — or  at 
least,  so  it  then  seemed.  The  stories  of  persecution 
that  came  through  from  Eastern  Europe,  even 
examples  of  friction  between  great  bodies  of  Jews 
there  and  the  natives  of  the  States  where  they 
happened  to  find  themselves,  were  received  in  the 
West  with  disgust  as  the  aberrations  of  imperfectly 
civilized  people. 

Even  in  the  valley  of  the  Rhine,  where  the  Jew 
was  more  numerous  and  better  known  "  in  bulk," 
the  convention  of  the  more  civilized  West  was 
accepted.  The  doctrines,  the  abstraction  of  the 
French  Revolution  in  this  matter  had  prevailed. 

Here  any  reader  with  an  historical  sense  will  at 
once  point  out  that  the  space  of  tune  I  have  just 
quoted — 1830  to  1890 — is  ridiculously  short.     Any 


24  THE  JEWS 

treatment  of  a  very,  great  political  problem, 
centuries  old,  which  works  for  only  sixty  years 
and  then  begins  to  break  down  is  no  settlement 
at  all.  But  I  would  reply  that  this  period  was 
especially  a  time  in  which  historical  perspective 
was  lost.  Men,  even  highly  educated  men,  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  greatly  exaggerated  the  fore- 
ground of  the  historical  picture. 

You  may  note  this  in  any  school  manual  of  the 
period,  where  all  the  four  centuries  of  our  Koman 
foundation  are  compressed  into  a  few  sentences, 
the  dark  ages  into  a  few  pages,  the  whole  vast 
story  of  the  Middle  Ages  themselves  into  a  few 
chapters ;  where  the  mass  of  the  work  is  invariably 
given  to  the  last  three  centuries,  while  of  these 
the  nineteenth  is  regarded  as  equal  in  importance 
to  all  the  rest  put  together. 

This  false  historical  perspective  is  apparent  in 
every  other  department  of  their  political  thought. 
For  instance,  although  capitalism,  huge  national 
debts,  the  anonymity  of  financial  action  and  the 
rest  of  it,  did  not  begin  to  flourish  fully  until  after 
the  first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  though 
anyone  might  (one  would  think)  have  been  able 
to  discover  the  exceedingly  unstable  character  of 
that  society,  yet  our  fathers  took  it  for  granted  as 
an  eternal  state  of  things.  Your  Victorian  man 
with  £100,000  in  railway  stock  thought  his  family 
immutably  secure  in  a  comfortable  income,  and 
what  he  thought  about  capitalism  he  thought  also 
about  his  newly- developed  anonymous  press,  his 
national  frontiers,  his  tolerance  of  this,  his  intoler- 
ance of  that,  his  parliaments  and  all  the  rest  of  it. 
It  is  no  wonder  if,  under  such  a  false  sense  of 
permanence  and  security,  he  lost  historical  per- 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PROBLEM      25 

spective  in  this  other  and  graver  matter  we  are 
here  discussing. 

But  apart  from  the  argument  that  what  I  have 
called  the  nineteenth  century  or  Liberal  attitude 
towards  the  Jews  worked  well  for  its  little  day 
(at  least,  in  Western  Europe),  there  is  also  the 
fact  that  under  special  circumstances  something 
very  like  it  has  worked  well  for  much  longer  periods 
in  the  past.  Take,  for  example,  the  position  of 
the  Jews  in  such  a  town  as  Amsterdam.  The 
reception  of  a  Jew  as  a  citizen  exactly  like  others, 
though  he  was  present  in  very  large  numbers,  the 
fiction  denying  his  separate  nationality,  has  held 
for  generations  in  that  community  and  it  has 
procured  peace  and  apparent  contentment  upon 
both  sides.  And  what  is  true  to  this  day  of  Amster- 
dam has  been  true  in  the  past  for  long  periods 
in  the  life  of  many  another  commercial  and 
cosmopolitan  society:  that  of  Venice,  notably, 
and,  in  a  large  measure,  that  of  Rome ;  in  that  of 
Frankfort,  of  Lyons,  and  of  a  hundred  cities  at  special 
times.     It  was  true  of  all  Poland  for  generations. 

One  might  add  to  the  list  indefinitely,  but 
always  with  the  uncomfortable  knowledge,  as  one 
wrote,  that  the  experiment  invariably  broke  down 
in  the  long  run. 

Again,  there  was  to  be  advanced  for  this  Liberal 
attitude  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  very  powerful 
argument  that  while  to  one  party  in  the  issue,  the 
Englishman,  the  Frenchman,  the  Italian,  etc.,  it 
seemed  well  enough  and  certainly  did  no  harm,  it 
was  highly  acceptable  to  the  other.  The  Jew  as  a 
rule  not  only  accepted  but  welcomed  this  particular 
way  of  dealing  with  what  he  at  any  rate  has  always 
known  to  be  a  very  grave  problem  indeed.     For 


26  THE  JEWS 

the  Jew  has  a  racial,  memory  beyond  all  other 
men.  The  arrangement  seemed  to  give  him  all 
the  security  of  which  his  racial  history  (a  thing  of 
which  every  Jew  is  acutely  conscious)  had  made 
him  ardently  desirous.  I  think  we  should  add 
(though  the  phrase  would  be  quarrelled  with  by 
many  modern  people)  that  this  fiction  satisfied 
the  Jew's  sense  of  justice.  For  it  is  no  small  part 
of  the  problem  we  are  examining  that  the  Jew  does 
really  feel  such  special  treatment  to  be  his  due. 
Without  it  he  feels  handicapped.  He  is,  in  his 
own  view,  only  saved  from  the  disadvantage  of  a 
latent  hostility  when  he  is  thus  protected,  and  he 
is  therefore  convinced  that  the  world  owes  him 
this  singular  privilege  of  full  citizenship  in  any 
community  where  he  happens  for  the  moment  to 
be,  while  at  the  same  time  retaining  full  citizenship 
in  his  own  nation. 

Now,  if  in  any  conflict  an  arrangement  seems  work- 
able enough  to  one  party  and  is  actually  acclaimed 
by  the  other,  it  is  not  lightly  to  be  disregarded. 

If,  for  instance,  a  man  and  his  tenant  quarrel 
about  the  tenure  of  a  field  upon  a  very  long  lease, 
the  tenant  caring  little  about  nominal  ownership 
but  very  much  about  his  inviolable  tenure,  the 
landlord  quite  agreeable  to  a  very  long  lease  but 
keen  on  retaining  the  titular  ownership,  that 
quarrel  can  be  easily  settled.  One  could  give  any 
name  to  the  tenant's  position  other  than  the  name 
of  "  owner,"  yet  satisfy  all  his  practical  demands. 
A  rough  parallel  exists  between  such  a  position 
and  the  attempt  at  a  settlement  which  marked  the 
nineteenth  century. 

What  the  Jew  wanted  was  not  the  proud  privilege 
of  being  called  an  Englishman,  a  Frenchman,  an 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PEOBLEM   27 

Italian,  or  a  Dutchman.  To  this  he  was  completely 
indifferent  (for  his  pride  lay  in  being  a  Jew,  his 
loyalty  was  to  his  own,  and  what  is  more,  he  might 
at  any  moment  fold  up  his  tent  and  go  off  to 
another  country  for  good).  What  the  Jew  wanted 
was  not  the  feeling  that  he  was  just  like  the  others 
— that  would  have  been  odious  to  him — what  he 
wanted  was  security  ;  it  is  what  every  human  being 
craves  for  and  what  he  of  all  men  most  lacked : 
the  power  to  feel  safe  in  the  place  where  one  happens 
to  be.  On  the  other  hand,  his  hosts  had  not  yet 
found  any  practical  inconvenience  in  granting 
this  demand.  They  did  not  know  the  historical 
argument  against  it,  or  they  thought  it  worthless, 
because  they  thought  the  past  barbarous  and  no 
model  for  their  own  action.  So  a  compromise 
was  arrived  at,  the  fiction  was  solidly  established, 
and  the  Jew,  though  remaining  a  Jew,  became 
a  German  in  Hamburg,  a  Frenchman  in  Paris,  an 
American  in  New  York,  as  he  wandered  from  place 
to  place,  and  for  a  long  lifetime  no  one  felt  himself 
much  the  worse  for  the  false  convention. 

The  next  argument  in  favour  of  this  policy  was 
the  fact  that  it  drew  upon  a  number  of  ideas,  each 
one  of  which  at  some  time  or  another  had  been 
taken  for  granted  by  our  ancestors  in  each  one  of 
their  numerous  (but  unsuccessful)  attempts  to 
deal  with  the  problem  after  their  own  fashion. 

For  instance,  a  modern  objector  says:  "  What 
rubbish  to  treat  Jews  as  though  they  merely 
represented  a  religion !  We  all  know  they  represent 
a  nation  !  "  But  all  manner  of  legislation  in  the 
past,  even  in  times  and  places  where  the  difference 
between  Jews  and  Europeans  was  most  marked, 
has  perpetually  fallen  back  upon  that  very  point 


28  THE  JEWS 

of  religion  alone.  Over  and  over  again  you  find 
it  the  test  of  policy :  in  early,  and  again  in  fifteenth 
century  Spain,  under  Charlemagne's  rule  in  Gaul, 
in  early  mediaeval  England,  at  Byzantium,  and 
to  this  day  in  Eastern  parts  where  the  Jew  is 
subject  to  perpetual  interference.  Exception  was 
in  all  these  made  for  the  Jew  who  abandoned  his 
religion.     His  nation  was  left  unmentioned. 

It  is  pertinent  to  quote  such  a  simple  and  recent 
example  as  the  body  of  Prussian  officers,  now 
happily  extinct.  It  was  a  standing  rule  in  the 
smarter  Prussian  regiments  (I  believe  in  nearly 
all)  that  no  Jew  could  get  his  commission.  The 
Prussian  system  left  the  granting  of  commissions, 
in  practice,  to  the  existing  members  of  the  regi- 
mental staff;  they  treated  their  mess  as  a  Club 
and  they  blackballed  Jews.  But  they  would  admit 
baftized  Jews,  and  did  so  in  considerable  numbers. 
Was  the  Jew  less  of  a  Jew  in  race  through  his 
baptism  ?  Throughout  all  the  centuries  that 
religious  criterion,  which  the  modern  reformer 
cries  out  against  as  a  piece  of  humbug  and  a  mask 
for  the  real  political  problem,  has  been  the  criterion 
taken.  It  is  true  that  the  modern  solution  did 
not  attempt  a  religious  segregation.  On  the 
contrary,  the  Liberal  thought  of  the  nineteenth 
century  held  all  such  segregation  in  abhorrence; 
but  it  had  this  in  common  with  the  older  fashion, 
that  it  made  religion  the  point  of  interest,  and  to 
that  extent  masked  the  more  real  point  of  nation- 
ality and  allegiance. 

Lord  Palmerston,  making  his  famous  speech 
on  the  sanctity  of  a  Greek  Jew's  bedstead,  and 
insisting  that  the  said  Greek  Jew  was  an  English 
citizen ;    Lord  Palmerston  carefully  avoiding  the 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PROBLEM      29 

word  "Jew"  and  pretending  throughout  his 
speech  that  the  Greek  Jew  in  question  was  as 
much  an  Englishman  as  himself,  was  in  a  very 
different  mood  from  a  Spanish  fifth- century  Bishop 
admitting  a  Jew  to  Office  on  condition  of  his 
conversion.  Yet  the  two  had  this  in  common,  that 
neither  regarded  the  Jew  as  the  member  of  another 
nation,  but  each  (for  very  different  reasons)  as  no 
more  than  the  member  of  a  religion. 

To  Palmerston,  this  Greek  Jew  about  whose 
bedstead  he  made  his  famous  speech,  and  onto 
whose  bedstead  hangs  to  this  day  the  phrase 
"  Civus  Romanus  Sum,"  was  above  all  a  fellow- 
citizen.  He  may  have  seemed  to  Palmerston  a 
doubtful  sort  of  Englishman  because  his  home  was 
Greece,  but  he  certainly  did  not  seem  doubtful 
because  he  happened  to  be  a  Jew.  Palmerston 
would  have  thought  that  only  a  matter  of  private 
opinion,  and  would  no  more  have  regarded  a  Jew 
as  an  alien  on  account  of  this  private  opinion  than 
he  would  have  regarded  as  alien  a  fellow- Member 
of  the  House  of  Commons  who  preferred  roast 
mutton  to  boiled. 

Take,  again,  another  aspect  of  the  nineteenth 
century  liberal  idea :  the  recognition  of  citizenship. 
You  have  had  that  over  and  over  again  in  the 
attempted  solutions  of  the  past.  It  was  the  very 
essence  of  the  Roman  method.  For  though  the 
Government  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  much  too 
concerned  with  realities  and  with  enduring  work  to 
accept  any  fiction  in  the  matter,  or  to  pretend  in 
practice  that  the  Jew  was  not  a  Jew ;  though,  on  the 
contrary,  the  Romans  recognized  at  once  the  gulf 
between  the  Jews  and  themselves,  and  recognized 
it  not  only  by  their  cruelty  to  the  Jew  but  also  by 


30  THE  JEWS 

the  privileges  they  granted  him ;  yet  it  was  always 
their  policy  to  admit  dtizenship  as  the  primary 
distinction.  The  Jew  who  could  claim  that  he  was 
a  full  Roman  citizen  was,  in  the  eyes  of  a  Roman 
Tribunal,  much  more  important  in  that  capacity 
than  in  his  social  capacity  as  Jew.  His  "  point," 
as  we  should  say  in  our  modern  slang,  was  his 
citizenship,  not  his  Judaism.  So,  I  say,  this 
solution  has  for  a  further  argument  the  fact  that 
in  one  part  or  another  it  is  in  touch  with  the  various 
attempts  our  race  has  made  in  the  past  to  solve 
the  problem. 

There  is  yet  another  argument  strongly  in  favour 
of  the  Liberal  fiction  which  was  attempted  in  the 
immediate  past,  and  thought  to  have  been  success- 
fully established.  It  is  the  consonance  of  that 
fiction  with  the  whole  body  of  modern  custom  and 
law,  with  the  whole  mass  of  modern  economic  and 
social  habit'. 

We  travel  so  much,  we  mix  so  much,  our  economic 
activities  are  at  once  so  complicated,  so  interlocked, 
and  (unhappily)  for  the  most  part  so  secret,  that 
any  other  way  of  meeting  the  Jews  would  have 
seemed — at  any  rate  if  it  had  appeared  in  the  shape 
of  a  positive  law — a  monstrous  anachronism.  A 
man  must  meet  his  friends'  friends  and  treat  them 
as  a  normal  part  of  the  general  society  in  which 
he  moves.  As  the  Jew  permeated  the  society  of 
the  West  everywhere  (small  though  his  numbers 
were  in  the  West),  as  he  everywhere  intermarried 
with  Europeans  of  the  wealthier  class,  to  insist  in 
his  presence  upon  his  separate  nationality  would 
have  been  odious ;  it  would  have  been  like  making 
a  guest  feel  out  of  place  in  one's  home. 

What  is  more,  to  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PROBLEM      31 

wealthier  and  governing  classes  of  tlie  Western 
States  the  difference  of  race  was  so  far  masked 
that  it  had  almost  come  to  be  forgotten.  Some- 
times a  shock  would  revive  it.  An  English  squire 
would  find,  for  instance,  that  a  relation  of  his  by 
marriage,  whose  Jewish  name  and  descent  he  had 
never  bothered  about,  was  cousin  to,  and  in  close 
connection  with,  a  person  of  a  totally  different 
name — an  Oriental  name — mixed  up  in  some 
conspiracy,  say,  against  the  Russian  State.  Or  he 
would  learn  with  surprise  that  a  learned  University 
man  with  whom  he  had  recently  dined  was  the 
uncle  of  a  socialist  agitator  in  Vienna.  But  the 
shock  would  be  a  passing  one,  and  the  old  mood 
of  security  would  return. 

With  the  growth  of  plutocracy  the  anomaly  of 
treating  Jews  as  individuals  separate  from  the 
rest  of  the  community  increased.  The  most 
important  men  in  control  of  international  finance 
were  admittedly  Jewish.  The  Jew's  international 
position  made  him  always  useful  and  often 
necessary  in  the  vast  international  economic 
undertakings  of  our  time.  The  anonymity  which 
had  come  to  be  taken  for  granted  throughout 
modern  capitalism  made  it  seem  absurd  or 
impossible,  always  highly  unusual,  and  probably 
futile,  to  search  for  a  separate  Jewish  element  in 
any  particular  undertaking. 

There  is  one  last  argument  for  this  Liberal  policy, 
which  has  a  strong  practical  value,  though  it  is 
exceedingly  dangerous  to  use  it  in  the  defence  of 
that  policy  because  it  cuts  both  ways.  It  is  the 
argument  that  the  Jew  ought  to  be  thus  treated 
as  a  citizen  exactly  like  the  rest  and  given  no 
position  either  of  privilege  or  disability,  because 


32  THE  JEWS 

he  does,  as  a  fact,  mould  himself  so  very  rapidly 
to  his  environment. 

When  men  say — as  they  are  beginning  to  do — 
that  a  Jew  is  as  different  from  ourselves  as  a 
Chinaman,  or  a  negro,  or  an  Esquimaux,  and  ought 
therefore  to  be  treated  as  belonging  to  a  separate 
body  from  our  own,  the  answer  is  that  the  Jew  is 
nothing  of  the  kind.  Indeed,  he  becomes,  after  a 
short  sojourn  among  Englishmen,  Frenchmen,  Ger- 
mans or  Americans,  so  like  his  hosts  on  the  surface 
that  he  is,  to  many,  indistinguishable  from  them ; 
and  that  is  one  of  the  main  facts  in  the  problem. 

That  is  the  real  reason  why  to  the  majority  of 
the  middle  classes  in  the  nineteenth  century,  in 
Western  countries,  the  Jewish  problem  was  non- 
existent. Were  you  to  say  it  of  any  other  race 
— negroes,  for  instance,  or  Chinamen — it  would 
sound  incredible ;  but  we  know  it  in  practice  to 
be  true,  that  a  Jew  will  pass  his  life  in,  say,  three 
different  communities  in  turn,  and  in  each  the 
people  who  have  met  him  will  testify  that  he  seemed 
just  like  themselves. 

I  have  known  a  case  in  point  which  would  amuse 
my  non- Jewish  readers  but  perhaps  offend  my 
Jewish  readers  were  I  to  present  it  in  detail.  I 
shall  cite  it  therefore  without  names,  because  I 
desire  throughout  this  book  to  keep  to  the  rule 
whereby  alone  it  can  be  of  service,  that  nothing 
offensive  to  either  party  shall  be  introduced ;  but 
it  is  typical  and  can  be  matched  in  the  experience 
of  many. 

The  case  was  that  of  the  father  of  a  man  in 
English  public  life.  He  began  life  with  a  German 
name  in  Hamburg.  He  was  a  patriotic  citizen 
of  that  free  city,  highly  respected  and  in  every 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PEOBLEM      33 

way  a  Hamburger,  and  the  Hamburg  men  of  that 
generation  still  talk  of  him  as  one  of  themselves. 

He  drifted  to  Paris  before  the  Franco- German 
War,  and,  there,  was  an  active  Parisian,  familiar 
with  the  life  of  the  Boulevards  and  full  of  energy 
in  every  patriotic  and  characteristically  French 
pursuit ;  notably  he  helped  to  recruit  men  during 
the  national  catastrophe  of  1870-71.  Everybody 
who  met  him  in  this  phase  of  his  life  thought  of 
him  and  talked  of  him  as  a  Frenchman. 

Deciding  that  the  future  of  France  was  doubtful 
after  such  a  defeat,  he  migrated  to  the  United 
States,  and  there  died.  Though  a  man  of  some 
years  when  he  landed,  he  soon  appeared  in  the 
eyes  of  the  Americans  with  whom  he  associated  to  be 
an  American  just  like  themselves.  He  acquired 
the  American  accent,  the  American  manner,  the 
freedom  and  the  restraints  of  that  manner.  In 
every  way  he  was  a  characteristic  American. 

In  Hamburg  his  German  name  had  been  pro- 
nounced after  the  German  fashion.  In  France, 
where  German  names  are  common,  he  retained  it, 
but  had  it  pronounced  in  French  fashion.  On 
reaching  the  United  States  it  was  changed  to  a 
Scotch  name  which  it  distantly  resembled,  and 
no  doubt  if  he  had  gone  to  Japan  the  Japanese 
would  be  telling  us  that  they  had  known  him  as 
a  worthy  Japanese  gentleman  of  great  activity  in 
national  affairs  and  bearing  the  honoured  name  of 
an  ancient  Samurai  family. 

The  nineteenth  century  attitude  almost  entirely 
depended  upon  this  marvellous  characteristic  in 
the  Jews  which  differentiates  them  from  all  the 
rest  of  mankind.  Had  that  characteristic  power 
of  superficial  mutation  been  absent,  the  nineteenth 


34  THE  JEWS 

century  policy  would  have  broken  down  as  com- 
pletely as  the  corresponding  Northern  policy 
towards  the  negro  broke  down  in  the  United 
States.  Had  the  Jew  been  as  conspicuous  among 
us,  as,  say,  a  white  man  is  among  Kaffirs,  the 
fiction  would  have  broken  down  at  once.  As  it 
was,  all  who  adopted  that  policy,  honestly  or 
dishonestly,  were  supported  by  this  power  of  the 
Jew  to  conform  externally  to  his  temporary 
surroundings. 

The  man  who  consciously  adopted  the  nineteenth 
century  Liberal  policy  towards  the  Jews  as  a  mere 
political  scheme,  knowing  full  well  the  dangers  it 
might  develop ;  the  man  only  half  conscious  of 
the  existence  of  those  dangers ;  and  the  man  who 
had  never  heard  of  them  but  took  it  for  granted 
that  the  Jew  was  a  citizen  just  like  himself,  with 
an  exceptional  religion — each  of  those  three  men 
had  in  common,  aiding  the  schemes  of  the  one, 
supporting  the  illusion  of  the  other,  the  amazing 
fact  that  a  Jew  takes  on  with  inexplicable  rapidity 
the  colour  of  his  environment.  That  unique  charac- 
teristic was  the  support  of  the  Liberal  attitude  and 
was  at  the  same  time  its  necessary  condition. 

The  fiction  that  a  man  of  obviously  difterent  type 
and  culture  and  race  is  the  same  as  ourselves,  may 
be  practical  for  purposes  of  law  and  government, 
but  cannot  be  maintained  in  general  opinion.  A 
conspiracy  or  illusion  attempting,  for  instance,  to 
establish  the  Esquimaux  in  Greenland  as  in- 
distinguishable from  the  Danish  officials  of  the 
Settlement,  would  fail  through  ridicule.  Equally 
ridiculous  would  be  the  pretence  that  because  they 
were  both  subjects  of  the  same  Crown  an  English- 
man in  the  Civil  Service  of  India  was  exactly 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PROBLEM   35 

the  same  sort  of  person  as  a  Sikh  soldier.  But  with 
the  Jews  you  have  the  startling  truth  that,  while 
the  fundamental  difference  goes  on  the  whole 
time  and  is  perhaps  deeper  than  any  other  of  the 
differences  separating  mankind  into  groups; 
while  he  is,  within,  and  through  all  his  ultimate 
character,  above  all  things  a  Jew;  yet  in  the 
superficial  and  most  immediately  apparent  things 
he  is  clothed  in  the  very  habit  of  whatever  society 
he  for  the  moment  inhabits. 

I  say  that  this  might  seem  to  many  the  last  and 
strongest  argument  in  favour  of  the  old-fashioned 
Liberal  policy,  but  I  repeat  that  it  is  a  dangerous 
argument,  for  it  cuts  both  ways.  If  a  food  which 
disagrees  with  you  looks  exactly  like  another 
kind  of  food  which  suits  you,  you  might  use  the 
likeness  as  an  argument  for  eating  either  sort  of 
food  indifferently.  You  might  say :  "  It  is  silly 
to  try  to  distinguish ;  one  must  admit,  on  looking  at 
them,  that  they  are  the  same  thing  "  ;  but  it  would 
turn  out  after  dinner  a  very  bad  practical  policy. 

There  is  indeed  one  last  argument  which  to  me, 
personally,  and  I  suppose  to  most  of  my  readers, 
is  stronger  than  all  the  rest,  for  it  is  the  argument 
from  morals. 

If  the  Liberal  attitude  of  the  nineteenth  century 
had  proved  a  stable  one,  omitting  that  element  in 
it  which  is  a  falsehood  and  therefore  a  factor 
of  instability,  one  could  retain  the  rest;  then  it 
would  satisfy  two  appetites  common  to  all  men — 
appetite  for  justice  and  the  appetite  for  charity. 

Here  is  a  man,  a  neighbour  present  in  the  midst 
of  my  society.  I  put  him  to  inconvenience  if  I 
treat  him  as  an  alien.  I  like  him;  I  regard  him 
as  a  friend.     To  treat  such  a  man  as  though  he 


36  THE  JEWS 

were,  although  a  friend,  something  separate,  not 
to  be  admitted  to  certain  functions  of  my  com- 
munity, offends  the  heart,  as  it  also  offends  the 
sense  of  justice.  Such  a  man  may  possess  a  great 
talent  for,  say,  administration.  Like  all  men 
possessed  of  a  great  talent,  he  must  exercise  it. 
You  maim  him  if  you  do  not  allow  him  to  exercise 
it.  A  rule  forbidding  him  to  take  part  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  society  in  which  he  finds  himself, 
or  even  a  feeling  hindering  him  in  such  activities, 
creates,  not  only  in  him,  but  in  those  who  are  his 
hosts,  a  sense  of  injustice ;  and  if  it  were  possible 
to  adopt  a  policy  wherein  the  separate  character 
of  the  Jew  should  be  always  in  abeyance,  so  that 
he  could  be  at  the  same  time  an  Englishman  and 
yet  not  an  Englishman,  or  a  Frenchman  and  yet 
not  a  Frenchman,  then  we  should  have  a  settlement 
which  all  good  men  ought  to  accept. 

Unfortunately  that  solution  is  false  because, 
like  many  appeals  to  a  virtuous  instinct,  it  is 
sentimental.  We  call  "sentimental"  a  policy 
or  theory  which  attempts  to  reconcile  contra- 
dictions. The  sentunental  man  will  equally  abhor 
crime  and  its  necessary  punishment;  disorder 
and  an  organized  police.  He  likes  to  think  of 
human  life  as  though  it  did  not  come  to  an  end. 
He  likes  to  read  of  the  passion  of  love  without  its 
concomitant  of  sexual  conflict.  He  likes  to  read 
and  think  of  great  fortunes  accumulated  without 
avarice,  cunning  or  theft.  He  likes  to  imagine  an 
impossible  world  of  mutually  exclusive  things. 
It  makes  him  comfortable. 

Now  we  commit  the  fault  of  the  sentimental  man 
( the  gravest  of  practical  faults  in  politics)  when  we 
cling  at  this  late  date  to  a  continuance  of  the  old 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PROBLEM      37 

policy.  You  cannot  have  your  cake  and  eat  it 
too,  you  cannot  at  the  same  time  have  present  in 
the  world  this  ubiquitous  fluid,  yet  closely  organized 
Jewish  community,  and  at  the  same  time  each  of  the 
individuals  composing  it  treated  as  though  they 
were  not  members  of  the  nation  which  makes 
them  all  they  are.  You  cannot  at  the  same  time 
treat  a  whole  as  one  thing  and  its  component 
parts  as  another.  If  you  do,  you  are  building  on 
contradiction  and  you  will,  like  everybody  who 
builds  on  contradiction,  run  up  agamst  disaster. 

I  am  minded  to  give  the  reader  another  anecdote 
(again  taking  care,  I  hope,  to  suppress  all  names 
and  dates  to  prevent  identification,  which  might 
irritate  my  Jewish  readers  or  too  greatly  interest 
their  opponents).  As  a  younger  man  it  was  my 
constant  pastime  to  linger  at  the  bar  of  the  House 
of  Lords  and  listen  to  what  went  on  there.  I  shall 
always  remember  one  occasion  when  an  aged  Jew, 
who  had  begun  life  in  very  humble  circumstances, 
had  accumulated  a  great  fortune  and  had  pur- 
chased his  peerage  like  any  other,  rose  to  speak 
in  connection  with  a  resolution  or  with  a  bill 
dealing  with  "aliens" — the  hypocrisy  of  the 
politician,  and  the  popular  ferment  against  the 
rush  of  Jewish  immigrants  into  the  East  End 
between  them  gave  rise  to  that  non-committal 
name.  This  old  gentleman  very  rightly  pushed 
all  such  humbug  aside.  He  knew  perfectly  well 
that  the  policy  was  aimed  at  "  his  people"— and 
he  called  them  "  my  people."  He  knew  perfectly 
well  that  the  proposed  change  would  introduce 
interference  with  their  movement  and  would 
subject    them    to    humiliation.     He    spoke    with 


3$  THE  JEWS 

flaming  patriotism,  and  I  was  enthralled  by  tKe 
intensity,  vigour  and  sincerity  of  his  appeal.  It 
was  a  very  fine  performance  and,  incidentally 
(considering  what  the  man  was!), it  illustrated  the 
vast  difference  between  his  people  and  my  own. 
For  a  life  devoted  to  accumulating  wealth,  which 
would  have  killed  nobler  instincts  in  any  one  of 
us,  had  evidently  seemed  to  him  quite  normal  and 
left  him  with  every  appetite  of  justice  and  of  love 
of  nation  unimpaired.  He  clinched  that  fine 
speech  with  the  cry,  "  What  our  people  want  is 
to  be  let  alone."  He  said  it  over  and  over  again. 
I  am  sure  that  in  the  audience  which  listened  to 
him,  all  the  older  men  felt  a  responsive  echo  to  that 
appeal.  It  was  the  very  doctrine  in  which  they 
had  been  brought  up  and  the  very  note  of  the  great 
Victorian  Liberal  era,  with  its  national  triumphs 
in  commerce  and  in  arms. 

Well,  within  a  very  few  years  the  younger 
members  of  that  very  man's  family  came  out  in 
Parliamentary  scandal  after  scandal,  appearing 
all  in  sequence  one  after  the  other — a  sort  of 
procession.  They  had  been  let  alone  right  enough ! 
But  they  had  not  let  us  alone.  I  ask  myself,  some- 
times. How  would  it  sound  if  some  years  hence 
any  one  of  those  descendants — having  by  that 
time  been  given  his  peerage  (for  they  are  rich 
men  and  all  of  them  in  professional  politics) — 
should  return  to  that  cry  of  his  ancestor  and  ask 
to  be  "  let  alone"  ?  There  would  be  no  response 
then  in  the  breasts  of  the  contemporaries  who 
might  hear  him.  Manners  will  so  much  have 
changed  in  this  regard  that  he  would  be  interrupted. 
But  I  do  not  think  that  my  hypothetical  descendant 
of  that  rich  old  Jew  is  likely  to  make  any  such 


THE  DENIAL  OF  THE  PROBLEM      39 

speech.  I  think  that  when  the  time  comes  for 
making  it,  the  whole  idea  of  "  letting  alone"  will 
be  quite  dead. 

^I  have  quoted  this  old  man's  speech  with  no 
invidious  intention  but  only  as  an  actual  example 
of  the  way  in  which  the  "  letting  alone  "  of  this 
great  question  breaks  down.  I  am  as  familiar  as 
any  Jewish  reader  of  mine  with  names  that  have 
dignified  public  life  in  the  past,  Jewish  names, 
Jewish  pees :  and  I  recall  in  particular  the  honoured 
name  of  Lord  Herschell  to  the  friendship  between 
whose  nearest  and  my  own  I  preserve  a  grateful 
and  sacred  memory. 

But  to  return  to  the  failure  of  the  sentimental 
argument. 

The  sentimental  argument  fails  because  it  involves 
contradictions — that  is,  incompatibility  of  fact. 

Even  if  one  had  not  this  strictly  rational  principle 
to  guide  one,  there  is  the  whole  of  history  to  guide 
one.  It  is  true  that  the  pretence  of  common  citizen- 
ship has  worked  now  for  a  shorter,  now  for  a  longer, 
period,  but  never  indefinitely.  You  always  come 
at  last  to  a  smash.  The  Jew  is  welcomed  in 
mediaeval  Poland ;  he  comes  in  vast  numbers ; 
all  goes  well.  Then  the  inevitable  happens  and 
the  Jew  and  the  Pole  stand  apart  as  enemies, 
each  accusing  the  other  of  injustice,  the  one 
crying  out  that  he  is  persecuted,  the  other  that  the 
State  is  in  danger  by  alien  activity  within.  Spain 
alternatively  pursued  this  policy,  and  its  opposite ; 
the  whole  history  of  Spain — the  original  seat  of 
Jewish  influence  in  Europe  after  the  general  exile — 
is  a  history  of  alternating  attempts  at  the  senti- 
mental solution  and  a  savage  reaction  against  it: 


40  THE   JEWS 

the  reaction  of  the  man,  who,  fighting  for  his  life, 
strikes  out  violently  in  terror  of  death.  That  is 
the  history  not  only  of  Spain  but  of  every  other 
country  at  one  time  or  another. 

Indeed,  we  have  before  our  very  eyes  to-day  the 
beginning  of  exactly  such  a  reaction  in  the  West 
of  Europe  and  the  United  States  of  America,  and 
it  is  the  presence  of  that  reaction  which  has  caused 
this  book  to  be  written.  The  attempt  at  a  Liberal 
solution  has  already  failed  in  our  hands;  if  it 
had  not  failed  there  would  be  no  more  to  be  said, 
or,  at  any  rate,  we  could  postpone  the  discussion 
until  the  actual  difficulty  began.  But  we  have 
only  to  look  around  us  to  see  that,  after  these  few 
years,  this  one  lifetime,  during  which  the  experi- 
ment has  flourished  in  the  highest  part  of  civilization, 
it  is  already  breaking  down.  Everywhere  the  old 
questions  are  being  asked;  everywhere  the  old 
complaints  are  being  raised,  everywhere  the  old 
perils  are  reappearing.  We  must  seek  some  solution, 
for  if  we  fail  to  find  it  we  know  from  the  past  what 
tragedies  are  in  store  for  us  both.  There  is  a  prob- 
lem, a  most  direct  and  urgent  problem.  Once  it  is 
recognized,  a  solution  of  it  is  necessarily  demanded. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  show  that  the  mere  denial 
of  the  existence  of  that  problem — the  old  nineteenth 
century  Liberal  policy — was  false  and  bound  to 
break  down.  It  is  just  as  necessary,  if  we  appre- 
ciate how  practical  and  immediate  the  problem  is, 
to  state  it  and  illustrate  it  from  contemporary 
events.  It  is  not  enough  to  show  that  the  attempted 
Liberal  policy  has  failed.  One  must  also,  before 
trying  to  discover  a  solution,  analyse  the  nature 
of  the  problem  as  it  presents  itself  at  the  moment, 
and  that  is  what  I  propose  to  do  in  the  next  chapter. 


THE  PRESENT  PHASE  OF  THE 
PROBLEM 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  PRESENT  PHASE  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

I  SAID  in  my  last  that  the  old  solution  of  ignoring 
or  denying  the  Jewish  problem  was  bound  to  break 
down  and  had  broken  down,  and  this  was  tanta- 
mount to  saying  that  the  problem  persists.  But  I 
said  one  must  go  farther  and  state  the  full  nature 
of  that  problem  as  it  stands  at  this  moment  before 
one  could  attempt  a  practical  solution. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  a  person  who  imagines 
himself  immortal  and  immune  from  disease  is,  as 
a  fact,  dangerously  ill,  and  that  the  break- dowTi 
of  his  health  has  disproved  his  theory.  One  must 
go  on  to  find  out  exactly  what  is  the  matter  with 
him,  and,  if  possible,  what  the  cure  for  the  trouble 
may  be. 

The  Jewish  problem  in  its  larger  sense  I  have 
defined  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  book,  and  that 
as  I  think  every  one  defines  it,  including  all  the 
many  Jews  who  have  discussed  the  matter.  It  is 
the  presence  within  one  political  organism  of 
another  political  organism  at  friction  with  it :  the 
strains  set  up  by  such  an  unnatural  state  of  affairs ; 
the  risk  of  disaster  to  the  lesser  body  and  of  hurt 
to  both  if  it  remain  unremedied.  The  true  solu- 
tion therefore  is  only  to  be  discovered  in  some 
policy  which  will  permanently  relieve  the  strain 

43 


44  THE  JEWS 

and  re-establish  normal  relations.  The  end  of  such 
a  solution  should  be  the  functioning,  as  far  as 
possible,  of  both  parties,  at  their  ease  and  without 
disturbance  one  to  the  other. 

But  this  general  statement  of  the  problem — that 
it  is  the  presence  to  each  party  of  an  alien  body 
and  the  consequent  irritation  and  friction  on  each 
— is  not  enough.  We  must  pursue  it  more  closely 
and  develop  it  in  greater  detail,  describing  how 
the  friction  and  the  irritation  are  increasing : 
insisting  that  they  have  even  become  a  menace. 
Then  only  can  we  set  out  to  discover  as  far  as 
possible  by  analysis  what  exact  character  the 
disease  bears  and  why  it  is  of  this  character.  Only 
after  all  this  can  we  explore  a  remedy. 

When  we  look  round  the  modern  world,  say  the 
last  twenty  years,  we  discover,  in  widely  separate 
places,  and  among  very  different  interests,  and 
inhabiting  the  most  diverse  characters,  the  pre- 
sence of  what  is  for  many  a  new  political  feeling : 
it  runs  from  irritation  to  exasperation,  from 
grumbling  to  invective ;  it  is  everywhere  directed 
against  the  Jews.  One  activity  after  another,  in 
which  the  Jews  are  variously  in  the  right  or  in  the 
wrong,  or  indifferent,  has  aroused  hostility  in 
varying  degrees — but  increasing — and  though  the 
danger- spots  are  still,  as  I  have  said,  dissociated 
in  the  main,  yet  they  are  beginning  to  coalesce 
and  to  form  large  areas  inimical  to  Israel. 

It  is  objected  of  the  Jew  in  finance,  in  industry, 
in  commerce — where  he  is  ubiquitous  and  powerful 
out  of  all  proportion  to  his  numbers — that  he  seeks, 
and  has  already  almost  reached,  dominion.  It  is 
objected  that  he  acts  everywhere  against  the 
interests  of  his  hosts;  that  these  are  being  inter- 


PRESENT   PHASE   OF  THE   PROBLEM    45 

fered  with,  guided,  run  against  their  will ;  that  a 
power  is  present  which  acts  either  with  in- 
difference to  what  we  love  or  in  active  opposition 
to  what  we  love.  Notably  is  it  said  to  be 
indifferent  to,  or  in  active  opposition  against, 
our  national  feelings,  our  religious  traditions, 
and  the  general  culture  and  morals  of  Christendom 
which  we  have  inherited  and  desire  to  preserve : 
that  power  is  Israel. 

These  feelings  grew  as  one  example  after  another 
of  the  Jewish  strength,  the  Jewish  cohesion, 
arrived  to  feed  them.  How  violent  they  were  to 
become  might  be  seen  by  taking  as  a  special  ex- 
ample their  extreme  form,  called"  Anti-Semitism." 
When  we  come,  later  in  this  book,  to  examine  that 
modern  phenomenon,  we  shall  find  it  to  be  not  only 
a  proof  of  the  insistence  and  gravity  of  the  problem 
we  are  trying  to  solve,  but  also  some  explanation  of 
its  nature. 

Upon  a  world  thus  already  exasperated,  and  in 
some  large  sections  exasperated  to  the  point  of 
unreason — for  the  anti-Semitic  drive  was,  and  is, 
full  of  unreason — there  suddenly  fell  the  double 
effect  of  the  Bolshevist  revolution:  a  revolution 
which  struck  both  at  the  benevolent  who  would 
hear  no  harm  of  the  Jews,  and  those  who  had 
hitherto  shielded  or  obeyed  them  as  identified 
only  with  the  interests  of  large  Capital.  It  was  a 
blow  in  flank  under  which  staggered  both  the 
supporters  of  Jewish  neutrality  and  the  dependants 
upon  Jewish  finance. 

The  old  Liberal  policy  still  officially  held  the 
field ;  but  when  this  shattering  explosion  came  it 
compelled  attention.  Bolshevism  stated  the  Jewish 
problem  with  a  violence  and  an  insistence  such 


46  THE  JEWS 

that  it  could  no  longer  be  denied  either  by  the 
blindest  fanatic  or  the  most  resolute  liar. 

Such  was,  in  its  largest  lines,  the  recent  historical 
sequence  leading  up  to  the  state  of  affairs  we  now 
find.  Let  us  trace  that  sequence  in  more  detail 
and  from  a  little  farther  back. 

A  lifetime  ago,  when  the  Liberal  policy  was 
founded  and  when  conditions  were  favourable  to 
its  establishment,  the  populace  might  still  nourish 
its  traditional  antagonism  to  the  Jew,  but  in  the 
West  of  Europe  his  numbers  were  very  limited 
(only  a  few  thousand  in  France  and  England 
combined,  and  hardly  as  many  in  Italy). 

He  belonged  for  the  most  part  to  the  classes  that 
did  not  come  into  direct  competition  with  the  poor 
of  the  large  towns.  From  the  countrysides  he 
was  absent.  He  had  not  attempted  to  govern  his 
hosts  as  a  politician,  nor,  in  any  large  measure,  to 
indoctrinate  them  through  the  Press.  The  rapid 
decline  of  religion  at  that  time  broke  down  one 
barrier,  and  the  transformation  of  the  governing 
classes  from  the  old  territorial  Lords  to  the  modern 
plutocracy  broke  down  another.  The  convention 
that  the  Jew  was  indistinguishable  from  the 
citizens  of  the  country  in  which  he  happened  to  live, 
or,  at  any  rate,  from  that  in  which  he  had  last  lived, 
was  further  fostered  by  the  break-up  of  that  cosmo- 
politan aristocratic  society  which  had  marked  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  which  could  note  and 
register  the  movements  of  prominent  individuals 
from  nation  to  nation.  The  new  industrial  for- 
tunes and  the  new  international  finance  both 
contributed  to  the  same  end,  while  the  Jew  also 
began  to  compete  successfully  in  every  one  of  the 
liberal  professions  without  as  yet  dominating  any 


PRESENT   PHASE   OF  THE   PROBLEM    47 

of  them.  No  conflicts  had  arisen  between  the 
Jewish  race  and  the  national  interests  of  any 
European  people,  with  the  exception  perhaps  of 
the  Poles;    and  these  were  subject  and  silenced. 

Throughout  all  this  time,  from  the  years  after 
Waterloo  to  the  years  immediately  succeeding  the 
defeat  of  the  French  in  1870-71,  the  weight  and 
position  of  the  Jew  in  Western  civilization  increased 
out  of  all  knowledge  and  yet  without  shock, 
and  almost  without  attracting  attention.  They 
entered  the  Parliaments  everywhere,  the  English 
Peerage  as  well,  and  the  Universities  in  very  large 
numbers.  A  Jew  became  Prime  Minister  of  Great 
Britain,  another  a  principal  leader  of  the  Italian 
resurrection ;  another  led  the  opposition  to  Napoleon 
III.  They  were  present  in  increasing  numbers 
in  the  chief  institutions  of  every  country.  They 
began  to  take  positions  as  fellows  of  every  important 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  college;  they  counted 
heavily  in  the  national  literatures;  Browning 
and  Arnold  families,  for  instance,  in  England; 
Mazzini  in  Italy.  They  came  for  the  first  time 
into  European  diplomacy.  The  armies  and  navies 
alone  were  as  yet  untouched  by  their  influence. 
Strains  of  them  were  even  present  in  the  reigning 
families.  The  institution  of  Freemasonry  (with 
which  they  are  so  closely  allied  and  all  the  ritual 
of  which  is  Jewish  in  character)  increased  very 
rapidly  and  very  greatly.  The  growth  of  an 
anonymous  Press  and  of  an  increasingly  anony- 
mous commercial  system  further  extended  their 
power. 

It  is  an  illusion  to  believe  that  all  this  great 
change  was  Jewish  in  origin.  The  Jew  did  not 
create  it,  he  floated  upon  it,  but  it  worked  manifestly 


48  THE  JEWS 

to  his  advantage,  and  we  find  him  at  the  end  of  it 
represented  on  the  governmg  institutions  of  Western 
Europe  fifty  or  one  hundredfold  more  than  was 
his  due  in  proportion  to  his  numbers.  The  Jews 
intermarried  everywhere  with  the  leading  families 
and,  before  any  sign  that  a  turn  of  the  tide  had  taken 
place,  they  had  already  achieved  that  position  in 
which  they  are  now  being  assailed  and  to  oust  them 
from  which  such  strong  efiorts  are  preparing. 

Perhaps  the  first  event  which  cut  across  this 
unbroken  ascent  was  the  defeat  of  the  French  in 
1870-1.  Not  that  its  effects  were  immediate  in 
this  field,  but  that  a  nation  defeated  is  the  more 
likely  to  raise  a  grievance,  real  or  imaginary;  in 
seeking  a  cause  for  social  misfortunes  following  on 
its  military  disasters,  it  will  naturally  fix  upon  an 
international  rather  than  a  national  one,  and 
blame  its  alien  population  rather  than  its  own. 
Moreover,  the  date  of  the  French  defeat  was  also 
the  date  on  which  was  overthrown  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Papacy.  In  this  also  the  Jews  had 
played  their  part.  It  gave  them  the  opportunity 
to  play  a  still  greater  part  in  the  immediate  future 
of  the  new  Italy.  Within  a  few  years  Rome  was 
to  see  a  Jewish  Mayor  who  supported  with  all  his 
might  the  unchristianizing  of  the  city  and  especially 
of  its  educational  system. 

One  small  but  significant  factor  in  the  whole 
business  of  these  70' s  and  early  80' s — the  beginning 
of  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century — 
was  the  rise  to  monopoly  of  the  Jewish  international 
news  agents,  among  which  Reuters  was  prominent, 
and  the  presence  of  Jews  as  international  corre- 
spondents of  the  various  great  newspapers,  the 
most  prominent  example  being  Opper,  a  Bohemian 


PRESENT  PHASE  OF  THE  PROBLEM    49 

Jew,  who  concealed  his  origin  under  the  false  name 
of  "  de  Blowitz,"  and  for  years  acted  as  Paris 
correspondent  iovTJie  Times,  a  paper  in  those  days 
of  international  influence. 

The  first  expression  of  the  reaction  that  was  at 
hand  was  to  be  found  in  sundry  definitely  anti- 
Semitic  writings  appearing  in  Germany  and  France, 
most  noticeable  in  the  latter  country. 

Their  effect  was  at  first  slight,  though  they  had  the 
high  advantage  of  extensive  documentation.  The 
great  majority  of  educated  men  shrugged  their 
shoulders  and  passed  such  things  by  as  the  extrav- 
agancies of  fanatics;  but  these  fanatics  none 
the  less  laid  the  foundation  of  future  action  by 
the  quotation  of  an  immense  quantity  of  facts 
which  could  not  but  remain  in  the  mind  even  of 
those  who  were  most  contemptuous  of  the  new 
propaganda.  In  these  books  special  insistence  was 
laid  upon  exposing  what  the  Jews  themselves  call 
"  crypto- Judaism" — that  is,  the  presence  every- 
where throughout  Western  Europe  of  men  in 
important  public  positions  who  passed  for  English, 
French  or  what  not,  but  were  really  Jews. 

In  many  cases  (I  have  already  quoted  the  poet 
Brownmg  and  the  distinguished  family  of  Arnold) 
these  people  were  not  hiding  their  religion  but 
had  simply  drifted  from  the  original  Jewish  com- 
munity of  which  their  ancestors  had  been  members, 
but  in  most  others  there  was  more  or  less  present 
an  element  of  conscious  secrecy.  It  was  evidently 
the  object  of  those  who  produced  the  literature  I 
am  describing  to  attack  that  secrecy  in  particular 
and  to  undo  its  effects ;  and,  as  I  have  said,  even 
where  their  fanaticism  was  most  ridiculed,  the 
vast  array  of  facts  which  they  marshalled  could 


60  THE  JEWS 

not  be  without  its  effect  upon  the  memory  of  their 
contemporaries. 

There  next  appeared  a  series  of  direct  inter- 
national actions  undertaken  by  Jewish  finance, 
the  most  important  of  which,  of  course,  was  the 
drawing  of  Egypt  into  the  European  system,  and 
particularly  into  the  system  of  Great  Britain. 

Of  more  effect  upon  public  opinion  was  the 
excitement  of  the  Dreyfus  case  in  France  and, 
immediately  afterwards,  of  the  South  African  War, 
in  England. 

The  characteristic  of  the  Dreyfus  case  was  not 
the  discussion  upon  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the 
unfortunate  man  from  whom  it  takes  its  title,  but 
the  immense  international  clamour  with  which  it 
was  surrounded.  This  local  affair  was  made  an 
affair  of  the  whole  world,  and  men  took  as  passionate 
an  interest  in  it  in  the  remotest  corners  of  civiliza- 
tion as  though  they  had  been  the  principals  actually 
engaged. 

Such  a  phenomenon  could  not  but  astonish  the 
mass  of  onlookers  who  had  hitherto  not  given  the 
Jewish  question  a  thought,  and  when  there  was 
added  to  it  the  great  ordeal  of  the  South  African 
War,  openly  and  undeniably  provoked  and  pro- 
moted by  Jewish  interests  in  South  Africa,  when 
that  war  was  so  unexpectedly  prolonged  and  proved 
so  unexpectedly  costly  in  blood  and  treasure,  a 
second  element  was  added  to  the  growing  feeling, 
not  yet,  indeed,  of  antagonism  to  Jewish  power 
(half  cultured  France  was  Dreyfusard,  and  much 
more  than  half  England  favoured  the  Boer  War  at 
its  origin) ,  but  of  interest  in  the  Jewish  question, 
of  curiosity,  on  the  part  of  the  average  citizen, 
who  had  not  hitherto  heard  of  it. 


PRESENT  PHASE  OF  THE  PROBLEM    51 

The  original  minority  which  had  begun  to  oppose 
Jewish  power,  with  their  extreme  left  wing  of  Anti- 
Semites,  and  their  core  of  men  whose  quarrel  was 
rather  with  the  financial  control  of  the  modern 
world  than  with  any  racial  problem,  tended  to 
grow.  As  always  happens  with  a  growing  move- 
ment, events  appeared  to  suit  themselves  to  that 
growth  and  to  promote  it. 

The  Panama  scandals  in  the  French  Parliament 
had  already  fed  the  movement  in  France.  The 
later  Parliamentary  scandals  in  England,  Marconi 
and  the  rest,  afforded  so  astonishing  a  parallel  to 
Panama  that  the  similarity  was  of  universal 
comment.  They  might  have  passed  as  isolated 
things  a  generation  before.  They  were  now  con- 
nected, often  unjustly,  with  the  uneasy  sense  of  a 
general  financial  conspiracy.  They  were,  at  any 
rate,  connected  with  an  atmosphere  essentially 
Jewish  in  character. 

Meanwhile  there  had  already  begun  one  of  those 
great  migratory  movements  of  the  Jews  which 
have  diversified  history  for  two  thousand  years 
and  which  are  almost  always  the  prelude  to  each 
new  disturbance  in  the  equilibrium  of  the  Jews 
and  each  new  resuscitation  of  the  Jewish  problem 
in  its  most  acute  form. 

The  great  reservoir  of  the  Jewish  race  was,  of 
course,  that  country  of  Poland  which  had  so  nobly 
succoured  the  Jews  during  the  persecutions  of  the 
late  Middle  Ages.  Poland  had  made  itself  an 
asylum  for  all  the  Jews  who  cared  to  go  to  it,  and 
was  now,  after  the  infamous  partition  inaugurated 
by  Prussia,  still  the  home  of  something  like  half 
the  Jews  of  the  world.  The  hatred  of  the  Jews 
entertained  by  all  classes  of  Russians,  the  persecu- 


52  THE  JEWS 

tions  they  suffered  froni  the  fact  that  Russia,  since 
the  partition,  governed  that  part  of  Poland  where 
they  were  most  numerous,  started  the  new  exodus. 
The  movement  was  a  westerly  one,  mainly  to  the 
United  States,  but  there  also  arose  in  connection 
with  it  a  novel  growth  of  great  ghettoes  in  the 
English  industrial  towns,  more  particularly  in 
London,  while  New  York  was  slowly  transformed 
from  a  city  as  free  of  Jewish  population  as  London 
and  Paris  had  been  in  the  past,  to  one  in  which  a 
good  third  or  more  of  its  inhabitants  became  either 
entirely  Jewish  or  partly  Jewish. 

This  vast  immigration,  which  was  in  full  swing 
just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  great  war,  and 
which  was  adding  so  active  a  leaven  to  the  increas- 
ing ferment,  which  had  even  planted  the  beginnings 
of  a  ghetto  in  Paris  and  which  was  affecting  the 
whole  of  the  West,  was  supplemented  by  one  more 
factor  of  the  first  importance. 

Modern  capitalism,  by  which  the  Jew  had  so 
largely  benefited,  but  which  he  did  not  originate 
and  in  which  prominent,  though  few,  Jewish 
names,  were  so  immixed,  had  for  its  counterpart 
and  reaction  the  socialist  movement.  This,  again, 
the  Jews  did  not  originate,  nor  at  first  direct; 
but  it  rapidly  fell  more  and  more  under  their 
control.  The  family  of  Mordecai  (who  had 
assumed  the  name  of  Marx)  produced  in  Karl  a 
most  powerful  exponent  of  that  theory.  Though 
he  did  no  more  than  copy  and  follow  his  non- 
Jewish  instructors  (especially  Louis  Blanc,  a 
Franco- Scot  of  genius),  he  presented  in  complete 
form  the  full  theory  of  Socialism,  economic,  social, 
and,  by  implication,  religious ;  for  he  postulated 
Materialism. 


PRESENT  PHASE   OF  THE  PROBLEM    53 

After  Karl  Marx  came  a  crowd  of  his  compat- 
riots, who  led  the  industrial  proletariat  in  rebellion 
against  the  increasing  power  of  the  capitalist 
system,  and  began  to  organize  a  determined  revolt. 

Before  the  Great  War  one  could  say  that  the 
whole  of  the  Socialist  movement,  so  far  as  its 
staff  and  direction  were  concerned,  was  Jewish; 
and  while  it  took  this  purely  economic  form  in 
the  West,  in  the  East — in  the  Russian  Empire — 
it  took  a  political  form  as  well,  and  the  growing 
revolutionary  force  in  that  Empire  was  equally 
Jewish  in  direction  and  driving  power. 

Such  was  the  situation  on  the  eve  of  the  Great 
War.  Men  were  beginning  to  be  thoroughly  alive 
to  what  was  meant  by  the  Jewish  problem.  The 
old  security  was  dispelled  for  ever;  but  as  yet 
only  a  minority,  though  now  a  large  one,  was 
prepared  to  deal  with  that  problem  and  to  discuss 
it  openly.  All  that  was  official,  and  particularly 
the  Press,  with  its  vast  influence,  had  as  yet 
refused  in  any  department  to  face  the  realities  of 
the  position.  The  convention  forbidding  public 
allusion  to  the  Jewish  question  was  still  very 
strong.  On  the  surface  it  seemed  as  though 
the  old  Liberal  policy  still  stood  firm  and, 
indeed,  unshakeable.  The  Jews  were  in  every 
place  of  'vantage:  they  taught  in  the  Universities 
of  all  Europe;  they  were  everywhere  in  the 
Press;  everywhere  in  finance.  They  were  con- 
tinually to  be  found  in  the  highest  places  of 
Government  and  in  the  chanceries  of  Christendom 
they  had  acquired  a  dominant  power  which  none 
could  question.  But  the  challenge  against  this 
unnatural  position  necessarily  worked  against 
great  odds,  it  remained  private  and  had  great 


64  THE  JEWS 

difficulty  in  finding  expression.     None  the  less,  it 
extended,  and  by  1914  had  become  serious. 

The  immeasurable  catastrophe  of  the  war — 
with  which  the  Jews  had  nothing  to  do  and  which 
their  more  important  financial  representatives  did 
all  they  could  to  prevent — fell  upon  Europe.  It 
seemed  at  first  as  though,  in  the  face  of  that  over- 
whelming tragedy,  what  had  been  so  rapidly 
growing — I  mean  the  debate  and  conflict  upon 
Jewish  claims — would  be  silenced.  The  Jews 
were  found  fighting  gallantly  in  all  the  armies. 
Their  services  were  generously  acknowledged, 
though  the  cruel  ambiguity  of  their  situation  was 
hardly  realized.  Considering  that  they  had.  no 
national  interest  in  the  fight,  it  must  have  seemed 
to  them  a  mere  insanity,  crucifying  their  nation 
to  no  purpose.  For  Zangwill  put  the  matter  well 
indeed  when  he  said  that  those  who  eagerly  and 
spontaneously  joined  the  first  recruiting  (and 
these  were  numerous)  did  so  "  for  the  honour  of 
Israel."  The  sacrifice  was  not  without  fruit.  In 
its  presence  many  a  complaint  was  silenced  and 
much  was  revealed  which,  but  for  it,  would  have 
remained  unprobed.  The  Christian  family  in  its 
bereavement  saw  at  its  side  a  Jewish  neighbour 
who  had  lost  his  son  in  what  was  no  concern  of  his 
race ;  the  Christian  priest  witnessed  the  agony  of 
the  young  Jewish  soldier.  The  defender  of  the 
Western  nations  saw  at  his  side  not  only  the  Jewish 
conscript  (who  should  never  have  been  called)  but 
the  Jewish  volunteer.  Thus,  the  first  to  enlist 
from  the  United  States  was  a  Jew,  later  promoted, 
whom  I  had  the  pleasure  and  honour  of  meeting 
on  Mangin's  stafi  at  Mayence.  I  hope  he  may 
see  these  lines. 


PEESENT  PHASE   OF  THE  PROBLEM    55 

It  looked  as  though  in  the  presence  of  such 
a  suffering,  which  the  Jews  shared  with  us,  the 
growing  quarrel  between  them  and  ourselves  would 
be  appeased.  Men  who  had  been  prominent  not 
only  for  their  discussion  of  the  Jewish  problem, 
but  for  their  direct  and  open  antagonism  to 
Jewish  power  and  even  to  the  most  legitimate  of 
Jewish  claims,  were  now  compelled  to  silence. 
Reconciliation  was  in  the  air  .  .  .  when,  in  the 
very  heat  of  the  struggle,  came  that  factor,  in- 
calculably important,  which  now  rules  all  the 
rest ;  I  mean  the  factor  of  what  is  called  Bolshevism. 

This  new  Jewish  movement  changed  the  whole 
face  of  things  and,  coming  on  the  top  of  the  rest, 
has  transformed  the  problem  for  all  our  generation. 

Henceforth  it  was  to  be  discussed  quite  openly. 
Henceforth  it  could  only  become,  more  and  more, 
the  chief  problem  of  politics  and  give  rise  to  that 
menacing  situation  upon  a  solution  of  which 
depends  the  security  of  our  future. 

For  the  Bolshevist  movement,  or  rather  explo- 
sion, was  Jewish. 

That  truth  may  be  so  easily  confused  with  a 
falsehood  that  I  must,  at  the  outset,  make  it  exact 
and  clear. 

The  Bolshevist  Movement  was  a  Jewish  move- 
ment, but  not  a  movement  of  the  Jewish  race  as 
a  whole.  Most  Jews  were  quite  extraneous  to  it ; 
very  many  indeed,  and  those  of  the  most  typical, 
abhor  it;  many  actively  combat  it.  The  impu- 
tation of  its  evils  to  the  Jews  as  a  whole  is  a  grave 
injustice  and  proceeds  from  a  confusion  of  thought 
whereof  I,  at  any  rate,  am  free. 

With  so  much  said  let  me  return  to  the  affair. 

What  is  called  "  Labour,"  that  is,  the  direction 


66  THE  JEWS 

of  the  proletarian  revolt  against  capitalist  condi- 
tions, had,  as  we  have  seen,  been  directed  in  the 
main  by  the  Jew.  His  energy,  his  international 
quality,  his  devotion  to  a  set  scheme,  prevailed. 
All  this  was  not  peculiar  to  Russia  but  present 
throughout  the  industrialized  areas  of  the  West. 

By  the  word  "directed"  I  do  not  mean  any 
conscious  plan.  I  mean  that  the  Jews,  with  their 
perpetual  movement  from  country  to  country, 
with  their  natural  indifference  to  national  feeling 
as  a  force  counteracting  class  feeling,  with  their 
lucid  thought  and  their  passion  for  deduction,  with 
their  tenacity  and  intellectual  industry,  had 
naturally  become  the  chief  exponents  and  the 
most  able  leaders.  They  formed,  above  all,  the 
cement  binding  the  movement  together  through- 
out the  world.  It  was  they,  more  than  any  others, 
who  insisted  on  a  clear-cut  solution  upon  the  lines 
which  their  compatriot  Karl  Marx  had  copied  from 
his  greater  European  contemporaries,  and  made 
definite  in  his  famous  book  on  Capital. 

But  there  was  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
between  this  intellectual  leadership,  this  organiza- 
tion of  socialism  by  Jews  while  Socialism  still 
remained  a  mere  theory,  and  the  control  and  actual 
management  of  it  in  a  great  State  when  it  passed 
from  theory  to  practice. 

The  words  "social  revolution"  were  still  but 
words  in  1914  and  men  did  not  take  them  too 
seriously.  But  when  in  1917  a  socialist  revolution 
was  accomplished  suddenly  at  one  blow,  in  one 
great  State,  and  when  its  agents,  directors  and 
masters  were  seen  to  be  a  close  corporation  of  Jews 
with  only  a  few  non- Jewish  hangers-on  (each 
of   these   controlled   by   the   Jews   through   one 


PRESENT  PHASE  OF  THE  PROBLEM    57 

influence  or  another),  it  was  quite  another  matter. 
The  thing  had  become  actual.  Tlie  menace  to 
national  traditions  and  to  the  whole  Cliristian 
ethic  of  property  was  innnediate.  More  important 
than  all,  so  far  as  the  Jewish  problem  is  concerned, 
many  wlio  liad  remninod  silent  upon  it  on  account 
of  convention,  avarice  or  fear,  were  now  compelled 
to  speak.  From  that  moment,  in  early  '17,  it 
became  the  chief  political  problem  of  our  time : 
coincident  with,  intimately  mixed  witii,  but  in  all 
its  implications  superior  to,  the  great  economic 
quarrel  on  to  which  it  was  now  grafted. 

The  story  may  be  briefly  told.  The  Russian 
State,  ill- equipped  for  modern  war,  had  passed 
during  the  end  of  the  year  1916  through  a  strain 
which  it  had  found  intolerable.  Russian  Society, 
after  the  mortal  losses  sustained,  was  upon  the  eve 
of  dissolution,  and  the  formidable  revolutionary 
movement  which  had  for  years  left  its  direction 
and  organization  in  Jewish  hands  broke  out,  for 
the  third  time  in  our  generation :  but  this  time 
successfully. 

After  rapidly  accelerating  phases  it  settled  into 
the  situation  which  has  endured  from  the  early 
part  of  191 8  to  the  present  day.  In  the  to\ms  the 
freely- elected  Parliament  was  repudiated  and  a 
"Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat"  was  declared. 
The  workshops  were  in  future  to  be  run  by  Com- 
mittees, in  the  Russian  "  Soviets,"  and  similar 
organizations  were  to  control  agriculture  in  the 
villages,  where  the  peasants  had  already  seized 
the  land  and  were  streaming  back  from  the  dis- 
solved armies  to  their  homes. 

In  practice,  of  course,  what  was  set  up  was  no 
proletarian    Government,    still   less   anything   so 


68  THE  JEWS 

impossible  and  contradictory  in  terms  as  a 
"  dictatorship "  of  proletarians.  The  thing  was 
called  "  The  Eepublic  of  the  Workmen  and 
Peasants."  It  was,  in  fact,  nothing  of  the  sort.  It 
was  the  pure  despotism  of  a  clique,  the  leaders  of 
which  had  been  specially  launched  upon  Russia 
under  German  direction  in  order  to  break  down 
any  chance  of  a  revival  of  Russian  military  power, 
and  all  those  leaders,  without  exception,  were  Jews, 
or  held  by  the  Jews  through  their  domestic 
relations,  and  all  that  followed  was  done  directly 
under  the  orders  of  Jews,  the  most  prominent  of 
whom  was  one  Braunstein,  who  disguised  himself 
under  the  assumed  name  of  Trotsky.  A  terror 
was  set  up,  under  which  were  massacred  innumer- 
able Russians  of  the  governing  classes,  so  that  the 
whole  framework  of  the  Russian  State  disappeared. 
Among  these,  of  course,  must  specially  be  noted 
great  numbers  of  the  clergy,  against  whom  the 
Jewish  revolutionaries  had  a  particular  grudge. 
A  clean  sweep  was  made  of  all  the  old  social 
organization,  and  under  the  despotism  of  this 
Jewish  clique  the  old  economic  order  was  reversed. 
Food  and  all  necessities  were  controlled  (in  the 
towns)  and  rationed,  the  manual  labourer  receiving 
the  largest  share;  and  none  any  share  unless  he 
worked  at  the  orders  of  the  new  masters. 

The  agricultural  land  was  in  theory  nationalized, 
but  in  practice  the  Jewish  Committees  of  the  towns 
were  unable  to  enforce  their  rule  over  it,  and  it 
reverted  to  the  natural  condition  of  peasant 
ownership.  But  the  Jewish  Committees  of  the 
towns  were  strong  enough  to  raid  great  areas  of 
agricultural  production  for  the  support  of  them- 
selves and  their  troops  and  of  their  dependants  in 


PRESENT   PHASE   OF  THE  PPvOBLEM    59 

the  cities,  who  had  come  close  to  starvation  through 
the  breakdown  of  the  social  system. 

What  followed  later  is  of  common  knowledge: 
the  attempts  at  counter-revolution,  led  by  scattered 
Russians  and  other  military  leaders,  all  failed 
because  the  peasants  believed  that  their  newly- 
acquired  farms  were  at  stake  and  eagerly  volun- 
teered to  defend  them,  the  greatly  increased 
misery  of  the  towns,  the  slow  decline  of  industrial 
production  (in  spite  of  the  most  rigid  despotism, 
enforcing  conscript  labour),  and  the  general 
deliquescence  of  society. 

If  the  motives  of  the  men  who  thus  brought  the 
whole  of  a  Christian  State  into  ruins  within  a  few 
weeks  were  analysed,  we  should,  it  is  to  be  pre- 
sumed, discover  something  of  this  sort:  their 
main  motive  was  the  pursuit  of  the  political  and 
economic  ideals  of  which  they  were  the  spokesmen 
and  which  already  so  many  of  their  compatriots, 
the  Jews,  throughout  the  rest  of  Europe,  had 
espoused — communism  so  far  as  property  was 
concerned ;  the  Marxian  doctrine  of  socialist  pro- 
duction and  distribution ;  the  Socialist  doctrine 
imposed  by  arbitrary  and  despotic  arrangements, 
favouring  those  who  had  in  the  past  been  least 
favoured.  In  this  economic  and  political  group  of 
motives  the  leading  motive  was  probably  enough, 
the  doctrine  of  Communism  in  which  these  men, 
for  the  most  part,  sincerely  believed. 

To  this  must  be  added  an  equally  sincere  hatred 
of  national  feeling,  save,  of  course,  where  the 
Jewish  nation  was  concerned.  The  conception 
of  a  Russian  national  feeling  seemed  to  these  new 
leaders  ridiculous,  as,  indeed,  the  conception  of  a 
national   feeling   must   seem   ridiculous   to   their 


60  THE  JEWS 

compatriots  everywhere;  or,  if  not  ridiculous, 
subsidiary  to  the  more  important  motives  of 
individual  advantage  and  to  the  righting  of  such 
immediate  wrongs  as  the  individual  may  feel. 
The  Christian  religion  they  naturally  attacked,  for 
it  was  abhorrent  to  their  social  theory. 

They  also  had  a  certain  crusading,  or  propa- 
gandist, ideal  running  through  the  whole  of  their 
action — the  desire  to  spread  Communism  far 
beyond  the  boundaries  of  what  had  once  been  the 
Russian  State.  It  is  this  which  has  led  them  to 
intrigue  throughout  Central,  and  even  in  Western, 
Europe,  in  favour  of  revolution. 

Though  these  were  the  main  motives,  other 
motives  must  also  have  been  present. 

It  is  impossible  that  Committees  consisting  of 
Jews  and  suddenly  finding  themselves  thus  in 
control  of  such  new  powers,  should  not  have 
desired  to  benefit  their  fellows.  It  is  equally 
impossible  that  they  should  have  forgone  a  senti- 
ment of  revenge  against  that  which  had  persecuted 
their  people  in  the  past.  They  cannot  but,  in 
the  destroying  of  Russia,  have  mixed  with  a 
desire  to  advantage  the  individual  Russian  poor 
the  desire  to  take  vengeance  upon  the  national 
tradition  as  a  whole ;  it  has  even  been  said — but 
denied,  and  I  know  not  where  the  truth  lies — that 
Jews  were  among  those  guilty  of  the  w^orst  incident 
which  we  now  know  in  all  its  revolting  details — the 
murder  of  the  Russian  Royal  family — father,  mother 
and  girls,  and  the  unfortunate  sickly  heir,  the  only 
boy.  Further,  it  is  impossible,  with  Jewish  Commit- 
tees thus  in  control  of  the  Russian  treasury  and  of 
Russian  means  of  communication,  that  they  should 
not  have  had  some  sympathy  with  their  com- 


PEESENT  PHASE   OF  THE  PROBLEM    61 

patriots  who  were  so  largely  in.  control  of  Western 
finance.  However  sincere  their  detestation  of 
capitalism  (for  probably  in  most  of  them  the 
opinion  is  held  sincerely  enough) ,  it  is  in  the  nature 
of  things  that  one  of  their  blood  and  kind  should, 
however  misguided  they  may  think  him,  appeal  to 
them  more  than  one  of  ours.  And  it  is  this  which 
explains  the  half  alliance  which  you  find  through- 
out the  world  between  the  Jewish  financiers  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  Jewish  control  of  the  Russian 
revolution  on  the  other.  It  is  this  which  explains 
the  half-heartedness  of  the  defence  against  Bol- 
shevism, the  perpetual  commercial  protest,  the 
continued  negotiations,  the  recognition  of  the 
Soviet  by  our  politicians,  the  clamour  of"  Labour  " 
in  favour  of  German  Jewish  industrialism  and 
against  Poland :  all  that  has  taken  place  wherever 
Jewish  finance  is  powerful,  particularly  at  West- 
minster. 

But,  be  this  as  it  may,  the  tremendous  explosion 
which  we  call  Bolshevism  brought  the  discussion 
of  the  Jewish  problem  to  a  head.  The  two  forces 
which  had  hitherto  held  back  the  discussion  of  that 
problem  were  that  Liberal  fiction  which  had  ruled 
for  more  than  a  generation,  according  to  which  it 
was  indecent  even  to  mention  the  word  Jew,  or  to 
suggest  that  there  was  any  difference  between  the 
Jew  and  those  who  harboured  him ;  and,  secondly, 
the  fact  that  the  Jews  were  erroneously  regarded 
by  most  of  the  well-to-do  people  in  the  West — 
that  is,  by  most  of  those  who  had  the  control  of 
the  Press  and  therefore  of  all  public  expression — ■ 
as  so  controlling  wealth  that  they  were  at  once  the 
natural  guardians  of  property  and  so  placed  that 
an  attack  upon  them  jeopardized  the  wealth  of 


62  THE  JEWS 

the  critic.  The  man  who  had  gone  into  the  City, 
or  who  had  his  life  spent  upon  the  Bourse  in  Paris, 
or  who  was  negotiating  any  great  capitalist  enter- 
prise, who  had  to  do  in  whatever  capacity  with 
the  running  of  the  great  banks  or  with  the  inter- 
national means  of  communication  by  sea  and  land, 
even  the  man  who  got  his  precarious  living  by 
writing — each  and  all  had  hitherto  felt  that  a 
public  silence  upon  the  Jewish  problem  was 
necessary  to  his  private  welfare. 

Those  who  recognized  the  gravity  of  the  problem 
had  hitherto  been  moved  by  fear  to  be  silent  upon 
it,  at  least  in  public,  though  in  private  they  were 
often  voluble  enough.  Those  who  recognized  it 
in  a  lesser  degree  had  also  been  affected  by 
the  same  fear.  Lastly,  you  had  the  large  class 
who  were  under  no  necessity  for  restraint,  whether 
from  fear  or  any  other  cause,  but  who  were  quite 
content  to  leave  things  as  they  were  so  long  as  they 
received  their  regular  salary  or  dividends,  and  who 
were  profoundly  convinced  that  any  interference 
with  the  Jew  would  imperil  those  dividends  or 
that  salary. 

The  Jewish  Bolshevist  movement  put  an  end  to 
that  state  of  mind.  The  people  who  had  hitherto 
been  silent  through  avarice,  convention,  or  fear, 
now  found  themselves  between  an  upper  and  a 
nether  millstone.  Hitherto  they  had  at  least 
believed  that  to  keep  silence  was  to  secure  or  to 
advance  their  economic  position.  Now  they  found, 
suddenly  risen  upon  the  flank  of  that  position,  a  new 
and  formidable  Jewish  force  determined  upon  the 
destruction  of  property.  There  was  no  longer  any 
reason  to  keep  silent.  There  was  a  growing  need 
to  speak.     And  though  the  old  habit,   the  old 


PKESENT  PHASE   OF  THE  PEOBLEM    63 

secrecy,  was  still  strong  upon  them,  the  necessity 
for  combating  Jewish  Bolshevism  was  stronger 
still.  All  over  Europe  the  Jewish  character  of  the 
movement  became  more  and  more  apparent.  The 
leaders  of  Communism  everywhere  proclaimed 
that  truth  by  adopting  the  asinine  policy  of 
pretending  that  the  revolution  was  Russian  and 
national;  they  attempted — ^far  too  late — to  hide 
the  Jewish  origins  of  its  creators  and  directors, 
and  made  a  childish  effort  to  pretend  that  the 
Russian  names  so  innocently  put  forward  were 
genuine,  when  the  real  names  were  upon  every 
tongue.  Yet  at  the  same  time  they  were  receiving 
money  and  securities  of  the  victims  through  Jewish 
agents,  jewels  stripped  from  the  dead  or  rifled  from 
the  strong  boxes  of  murdered  men  and  women.  In 
one  specific  instance  the  promise  of  a  subsidy  to  a 
Communist  paper  in  London  was  traced  to  this 
source ;  it  was  proved  that  the  Englishman 
involved  was  a  mere  puppet  and  that  the  Jewish 
connections  of  the  family  through  marriage  were 
the  true  agents  in  the  transaction.  In  another 
a  Trade  Deputation  was  pompously  announced 
under  Russian  names,  which  turned  out  upon 
inspection  to  consist,  as  to  its  first  member,  of  a 
man  engaged  all  his  life  in  the  service  of  a  Jewish 
firm,  as  to  the  other,  of  a  Jew  who  was  actually 
the  brother-in-law  of  Braunstein !  The  diplomatic 
agent  nominated  and  partially  accepted  by  the 
British  Government  to  represent  the  new  authority 
of  the  Russian  towns  was  again  a  Jew,  Finkelstein, 
the  nephew  by  marriage  of  a  prominent  Jew  in  this 
country.  He  passed  under  the  name  of  Litvinofi. 
So  it  was  throughout  the  whole  movement,  in  every 
capital  and  in  every  great  industrial  town. 


64  THE  JEWS 

We  must  not  neglect  tlie  very  obvious  truth  that 
in  all  this  there  was  ample  fuel  for  the  flame.  The 
industrial  proletariat  throughout  the  world  was 
equally  disgusted  and  equally  ready  for  revolt. 
The  leadership  of  the  movement  may  be  Jewish 
but  its  current  was  not  created  by  the  Jew.  To 
imagine  that  is  to  fall  into  the  most  childish  errors 
of  the  "  Anti-Semite."  The  stream  of  influence 
arose  from  the  sufferings  and  the  burning  sense  of 
injustice  which  industrial  capitalism  had  imposed 
on  the  dispossessed  mass  of  wage  earners.  They 
were  (and  are)  naturally  indifferent  as  to 
whether  those  whom  they  hope  may  be  their 
saviours  come  from  Palestine,  Muscovy  or  Tim- 
buctoo.  They  are  interested  in  economic  freedom : 
in  the  doctrine  of  socialism  and  in  its  results,  not  in 
the  personality  of  those  who  guide  them. 

Their  position  is  comprehensible  enough :  but  my 
point  is,  that  the  directing  minority  of  Western 
European  capitalism  which  had  hitherto  been 
silent  upon  the  Jewish  problems  from  the  motives 
I  have  described  were  now  released;  they  were 
free  to  speak  their  mind,  and  began  to  speak  it. 
The  volume  of  their  protest  cannot  but  increase. 
The  cat,  as  the  expression  goes,  is  out  of  the  bag, 
or,  to  put  it  in  more  dignified  language,  the  debate 
will  now  never  more  be  silenced.  It  is  admitted 
that  the  revolutionary  leadership  is  mainly 
Jewish.  It  is  recognized  as  clearly  now  as  it  has 
long  been  recognized  that  international  finance  was 
mainly  Jewish ;  and  even  those  who  would  tolerate 
silence  upon  the  one  peril  will  certainly  not  tolerate 
it  upon  the  other. 

The  danger  is,  indeed,  not  over.  The  debate 
will  take  place — ^that  is  no  peril,  but  a  good;  the 


PKESENT  PHASE  OF  THE   PROBLEM    65 

danger  is  rather  that,  as  restraint  is  gradually 
removed,  the  natural  antagonism  to  the  Jewish 
race,  felt  by  nearly  all  those  who  are  not  of  it  and 
among  whom  it  lives,  may  take  an  irrational  and 
violent  form,  and  that  we  may  be  upon  the  brink 
of  yet  one  more  of  those  catastrophes,  of  those 
tragedies,  of  those  disasters  which  have  marked 
the  history  of  Israel  in  the  past. 

To  avert  this,  to  discover  some  solution  of  the 
problem  while  there  is  yet  time,  to  prevent  deeds 
which  would  bring  us  to  shame  and  that  small 
minority  among  us  to  suffering,  should  be  the 
object  of  every  honest  man. 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF 
FRICTION 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION 

The  immediate  cause  of  the  new  gravity  apparent 
in  the  Jewish  problem  is  the  Revolution  in  Russia. 
The  completely  new  feature  of  open  discussion  now 
attaching  to  it  (a  thing  which  would  have  seemed 
incredible  in  England  twenty  years  ago)  is  the  leader- 
ship the  Jews  have  assumed  in  the  economic  quarrel 
of  the  proletariat  against  capitalism. 

Most  people,  therefore,  on  being  asked  the  cause 
of  friction  between  the  Jews  and  their  hosts  at  this 
moment  will  reply  (in  England,  at  least)  that  it  lies 
in  the  anti- social  propaganda  now  running  loose 
throughout  Industrial  Europe.  "  Our  quarrel  with 
the  Jews,"  you  will  hear  from  a  hundred  different 
sources,  "  is  that  they  are  conspiring  against  Chris- 
tian civilization,  and  in  particular  against  our  own 
country,  under  the  form  of  social  revolutionaries." 

Such  a  reply,  though  it  is  the  almost  universal 
reply  of  the  moment  in  this  country,  is  most 
imperfect. 

The  friction  between  the  Jews  and  the  nations 
among  which  they  are  dispersed  is  far  older,  far 
more  profound,  far  more  universal.  For  a  whole 
generation  before  the  present  crisis  arose,  the  com- 
paratively small  number  of  men  who  were  hammer- 
ing away  steadily  at  the  Jewish  problem,  trying  to 

69 


70  THE  JEWS 

provoke  its  discussion,  and  insisting  on  its  import- 
ance, were  mainly  concerned  with  quite  another 
aspect  of  Jewish  activity — the  aspect  of  inter- 
national finance  as  controlled  by  Jews.  Before 
that  aspect  had  assumed  its  modern  gravity  the  re- 
proach against  the  Jews  was  that  their  international 
position  warred  against  our  racial  traditions  and 
our  patriotisms.  Before  that  again  there  had  been 
the  reproach  of  a  different  religion  and  particularly 
of  their  antagonism  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarna- 
tion and  all  that  flowed  from  that  doctrine.  And 
there  had  been  even,  before  that  great  quarrel,  the 
reproach  that  they  were  bad  citizens  within  the 
pagan  Roman  Empire,  perpetually  in  rebellion 
against  it  and  guilty  of  massacring  other  Roman 
citizens. 

In  another  civilization  than  ours,  in  that  of 
Islam,  another  set  of  reproaches  had  arisen,  or 
rather  another  species  of  contempt  and  oppression. 
After  long  periods  of  peace  there  would  come,  in 
particular  regions,  the  most  violent  oppression. 
Within  the  last  few  years,  for  instance,  a  Jew  in 
Morocco  was  treated  as  though  he  was  hardly 
human.  He  had  to  turn  his  face  to  the  wall  when 
any  magnate  was  passing  by.  He  had  to  dress  in  a 
particular  manner  to  mark  him  oft'  as  something 
degraded  among  his  fellow-beings.  He  might  not 
ride  through  the  gate  of  a  town,  but  had  to  dis- 
mount. There  were  twenty  actions  normal  to 
civic  life  in  the  Moroccan  city  which  were  forbidden 
to  the  Jew. 

All  this  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  the  friction 
between  the  Jews  and  those  among  whom  they 
live  is  always  present,  and  has  always  been  present, 
now  latent,  now  rising  furiously  to  the  surface, 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    71 

now  grumbling  through  long  periods  of  uncertain 
peace,  now  boiling  over  in  all  the  evils  of  persecu- 
tion— which  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  this  friction 
between  Jew  and  non-Jew,  while  finding  different 
excuses  for  its  action  on  different  occasions,  has 
been  a  force  permanently  at  work  everywhere  and 
at  all  times. 

What  is  the  cause  of  it  ?     What  is  its  nature  ? 

The  matter  is  very  difficult  to  approach,  because 
we  are  not  dealing  with  things  susceptible  of  positive 
proof.  You  can  prove  from  historical  record  that 
the  thing  has  existed.  You  can  show  its  terrible 
effects,  ceaselessly  recurrent  throughout  all  our 
history.  But  it  is  another  matter  to  analyse  the 
unseen  forces  which  produce  it,  and  any  such 
analysis  can  be  no  more  than  an  attempt. 

I  take  it  that  the  causes  of  this  friction,  with 
all  its  lamentable  results,  are  of  two  kinds.  There 
are,  first,  general  causes  for  it,  by  which  I  mean  those 
causes  which  are  always  present  and  are  ineradic- 
able. Their  effort  may  be  summed  up  in  the  truth 
that  the  whole  texture  of  the  Jewish  nation,  their 
corporate  tradition,  their  social  mind,  is  at  issue 
with  the  people  among  whom  they  live.  There 
are,  next,  special  causes,  by  which  I  mean  social 
actions  and  expressions  which  lead  to  friction  and 
could  be  modified,  the  two  chief  of  which  are  the 
use  of  secrecy  by  the  Jews  as  a  method  of  action 
and  the  open  expression  of  superiority  over  his 
neighbours  which  the  Jew  cannot  help  feeling  but 
is  wrong  to  emphasize. 

I  will  deal  with  these  in  their  order,  and  first 
consider  the  general  causes ;  though  I  must  admit 
at  the  outset  that  a  mere  summary  of  them  is  no 
sufficient  explanation  of  the  phenomenon.     There 


72  THE  JEWS 

would  seem  to  be  something  more  profound  and 
even  more  mysterious  about  it.  For  it  will  be 
universally  conceded  that,  while  the  closest  intimacy 
and  respect  is  possible  between  individuals  of  the 
two  opposing  races,  the  moment  you  come  to  great 
groups,  and  especially  to  the  popular  instinct  in 
the  matter,  the  gravest  friction  is  apparent.  It 
is  an  issue  too  deep  than  to  be  accounted  for 
by  mere  difierences  of  temper.  It  is  as  though 
there  were  some  inward  force  filling  men  on  either 
side,  not  indeed  with  necessary  hostility — ^it  is 
against  any  such  necessity  that  all  this  book  is 
written — but  certainly  with  conflicting  ends. 

It  is  first  to  be  noted  that  most  of  the  accusations 
made  against  the  Jews  by  their  enemies  and  most 
of  the  very  proper  rebuttals  of  those  accusations 
advanced  by  the  Jews  and  their  defenders,  miss 
the  mark  because  they  attempt  to  put  in  abstract 
form  what  is  really  something  highly  concrete. 
And  this  is  equally  true  of  the  praise  bestowed 
upon  the  Jews,  of  the  special  virtues  ascribed  to 
them  and  of  the  denials  of  these  virtues. 

They  miss  the  mark  because  they  attempt  to 
express  in  terms  of  one  category  what  should  be 
expressed  in  terms  of  another.  They  are  doing 
what  a  man  does  when  he  compares  two  pictures 
by  their  outline  while  in  point  of  fact  their  interest 
lies  in  colour,  or  when  he  affirms  something  of  a 
tune  the  fundamental  point  of  which  something  is 
not  the  air  at  all  but  the  instruments  upon  which 
it  is  played :  as  who  should  say  that  "  God  save 
the  King  "  was  "  shrill "  because  he  heard  it  played 
on  a  penny  whistle  or  "  booming  "  because  he  heard 
it  played  on  a  violoncello.  The  real  point  to  note 
is  not  that  the  Jews  appear  to  us  (or  we  to  them) 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    73 

to  possess  certain  abstract  qualities  and  defects, 
but  that  in  their  case  each  quality  or  defect  has  a 
special  character,  a  special  national  timbre  which  it 
lacks  in  ours. 

Thus  you  will  hear  the  Jews  arraigned  by  their 
enemies  for  three  such  vices  as  cowardice,  avarice 
and  treason — ^to  take  three  of  the  commonest 
accusations.  You  examine  their  actions  and  you 
find  innumerable  instances  of  the  highest  courage, 
the  greatest  generosity  and  the  most  devoted 
loyalty  :  but  courage,  generosity  and  loyalty  of  a 
Jewish  kind,  directed  to  Jewish  ends,  and  stamped 
with  a  highly  distinctive  Jewish  mark. 

The  man  who  accuses  the  Jews  of  cowardice 
means  that  they  do  not  enjoy  a  fight  of  his  kind, 
nor  a  fight  fought  after  his  fashion.  All  he  has 
discovered  is  that  the  courage  is  not  shown  under 
the  same  circumstances,  nor  for  the  same  ends,  nor 
in  the  same  mode.  But  if  the  word  courage  means 
anything,  he  cannot  on  reflection  deny  it  to  actions 
of  which  one  could  make  an  endless  catalogue  even 
from  contemporary  experience  alone.  Is  it  cowar- 
dice in  a  young  man  to  sacrifice  his  life  deliberately 
for  the  sake  of  his  own  people  ?  Did  that  young 
Jew  show  cowardice  who  killed  the  Russian  Prime 
Minister,  the  antagonist  of  his  people,  after  the  first 
revolution  following  on  the  Russo-Japanese  war  ? 
Was  it  cowardice  to  walk  up  in  a  crowded  theatre, 
surrounded  by  all  the  enemies  of  his  race,  and  shoot 
their  chief  in  their  midst?  Is  it  cowardice  to 
stand  up  against  the  vast  alien  majority,  and  to 
do  so  over  and  over  again,  perhaps  through  a  whole 
lifetime,  insisting  on  things  that  are  grossly  un- 
popular with  that  majority  and  running  a  risk  the 
whole  time  of  physical  violence  ?     You  find  Jews 


74  THE  JEWS 

adopting  that  attitude  all  over  Europe.  Can  one 
think  it  is  cowardice  which  has  permitted  the 
individuals  of  this  nation  to  maintain  their  tradition 
unbroken  through  two  thousand  years  of  inter- 
mittent torture,  spoliation  and  violent  death  ? 
The  thing  so  stated  is  ridiculous,  and  it  is  clear 
that  those  who  make  such  an  accusation  are  con- 
founding their  own  form  of  courage  with  courage 
as  a  universal  attribute. 

They  think  that  because  Jews  show  courage 
under  other  circumstances  and  in  another  way  from 
themselves,  corresponding  to  another  appetite,  as 
it  were,  therefore  it  is  no  longer  courage :  to  think 
like  that  is  to  confess  yourself  very  limited. 

I  can  testify,  myself,  to  any  number  of  courageous 
acts  which  I  have  seen  performed  by  Jews.  I  am 
not  alluding  to  acts  of  courage  in  warfare,  of  which 
there  is  ample  evidence,  but  to  acts  of  a  sort  in 
which  our  race  would  not  have  shown  the  same 
quality  or  timbre  of  courage.     I  will  cite  one  case. 

Rather  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  when  feeling 
on  the  Dreyfus  case  was  at  its  height  and  when 
the  feeling  of  the  French  Army  in  particular  was 
at  white  heat,  I  happened  to  be  in  the  town  of 
Nimes,  through  which,  at  the  time,  a  body  of 
troops  was  passing.  The  cafe  in  which  I  sat  was 
filled  with  young  sergeants.  There  were  hardly 
any  civilians  present  beside  myself.  There  came 
into  the  place  an  elderly  Jew,  very  short  in  stature, 
highly  marked  with  the  physical  characteristics  of 
his  race,  an  unmistakable  Jew.  He  was  somewhat 
bent  under  the  weight  of  his  years,  with  fiery  eyes 
and  a  singularly  vibrating  intonation  of  voice. 
He  was  selling  broadsheets  of  the  most  violent 
kind,  all  of  them  insults  against  the  Army.     He 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    75 

came  into  this  cafe  with  the  sheets  in  his  hand  so 
that  all  could  see  the  large  capital  letters  of  the 
headlines,  and  slowly  went  round  the  assembly 
ironically  offering  them  to  the  lads  in  uniform  with 
their  swords  at  their  side,  for  they  were  of  the 
cavalry. 

Every  one  knows  the  French  temper  on  such 
occasions — a  complete  silence  which  may  at  any 
moment  be  transformed  into  something  very  dif- 
ferent. One  sergeant  after  another  politely  waved 
him  aside  and  passed  him  on.  He  went  round  the 
whole  lot  of  them,  gazing  into  their  faces  with  his 
piercing  eyes,  wearing  the  whole  time  an  ironical 
smile  of  insult,  describing  at  intervals  the  nature 
of  his  goods,  and  when  he  had  done  that  he  went 
out  unharmed. 

It  was  an  astonishing  sight.  I  have  seen  many 
others  as  astonishing  and  as  vivid,  but  for  courage 
I  have  never  seen  it  surpassed.  Here  was  a  man, 
old  and  feeble,  the  member  of  a  very  small  minority 
which  he  knew  to  be  hated,  and  particularly  hated 
by  the  people  whom  he  challenged.  Because  he 
held  one  of  his  own  people  to  be  injured,  he  took 
this  tremendous  risk  and  went  through  this  self- 
imposed  task  with  a  sort  of  pleasure  in  that  risk. 
You  may  call  it  insolence,  offensiveness,  what  you 
will :  but  you  cannot  deny  it  the  title  of  courage. 
It  was  courage  of  the  very  highest  quality. 

I  repeat :  you  may  see  evidence  of  that  sort  of 
courage  in  Jewish  action  throughout  the  world  and 
in  every  age.  You  have  the  beginning  of  it  in  the 
Siege  of  Jerusalem;  to-morrow,  if  the  fear  which 
we  now  all  entertain  should  unhappily  prove  well 
founded,  we  shall  see  it  again  upon  the  same  scale. 

Take   avarice.     When   the   Jew   is   accused   of 


76  THE  JEWS 

avarice  by  his  enemies  they  are  reading  into  him 
that  vice  in  a  form  of  which  they  know  themselves 
capable,  which  they  themselves  practise,  which 
they  fully  understand,  but  which  he  never  practises 
in  their  fashion.  The  Jew  is  adventurous  with  his 
money.  He  is  a  speculator,  a  trader.  He  is  also 
a  man  who  thinks  of  it  in  exact  terms.  He  is 
never  romantic  about  it.  But  he  is  almost  invari- 
ably generous  in  the  use  of  it.  Our  race,  when  it 
yields  to  the  vice  of  avarice,  is  close,  secretive, 
uncharitable.  He  is  pitiless  and  sly  in  accumula- 
tion. He  is  vociferous  in  his  insistence  upon  the 
exact  terms  of  an  agreed  compact.  He  is  also 
tenacious  in  the  pursuit  of  anything  which  he  has 
set  out  on,  the  accumulation  of  money  among  the 
rest.  He  is  almost  fanatical  in  his  appetite  for 
success  in  whatever  he  has  undertaken,  the  accumu- 
lation of  money  among  the  rest.  But  to  say  that  the 
money,  once  accumulated,  is  not  generously  used, 
is  nonsense.  There  is  not  one  of  us  who  could  not 
cite  at  once  a  dozen  examples  of  Jewish  generosity 
upon  a  scale  which  makes  us  ashamed. 

Nor  is  it  true  to  say  that  this  generosity  has 
ostentation  for  its  root,  or,  as  it  is  called,  "  Ran- 
some,"  either.  Though  a  love  of  magnificence  is 
certainly  a  great  passion  in  the  Jewish  character, 
it  does  not  account  for  the  most  of  his  generosity. 
It  is  a  generosity  which  extends  to  all  manner  of 
private  relations,  and  if  you  will  take  the  testimony 
of  those  who  have  been  in  the  service  of  the  Jews 
and  are  not  Jews  themselves,  that  testimony  is 
almost  universally  in  favour  of  their  employers,  if 
those  employers  be  men  of  large  means. 

They  will  tell  you  that  they  felt  humiliated  in 
serving  a  Jew ;  that  the  relations  were  never  easy ; 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    77 

that  there  was  always  distance.  But  not  often  that 
they  were  treated  meanly.  Just  the  other  way. 
There  has  usually  been  present  a  spontaneous  gener- 
osity. The  same  argument  applies  to  the  cry  of 
"  Ransome."  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  more 
scandalous  Jewish  fortunes  have  thrown  up  defences 
against  public  anger  by  the  return  of  a  small  pro- 
portion in  the  shape  of  public  endowments :  it  is 
an  action  and  a  motive  not  peculiar  to  them.  But 
that  does  not  explain  the  mass  of  private  and 
unheard  benefaction  to  which  we  can  all  testify 
and  which  is  as  common  with  the  middle- class  Jew 
as  with  the  wealthy.  It  is  here  as  in  the  matter 
of  courage  a  question  of  hi7id.  Those  of  our  people 
who  happen  to  be  generous  (they  are  rare)  do  not 
calculate.  They  often  forget  or  confuse  the  sums 
they  have  made  away  with,  as  though  it  were  mere 
extravagance.  The  Jew  knows  the  exact  extent 
of  his  sacrifice,  its  proportion  to  his  total  means. 
Is  he  then  less  generous  ?  By  no  means.  He  is, 
in  scale  more  generous — ^but  in  a  difierent  fashion. 
It  might  be  argued  that  this  generosity  of  the 
Jew  is  a  consequence  of  the  way  in  which  he  regards 
money.  It  comes  and  goes  with  him  because  he 
is  a  speculator  and  a  wanderer.  It  has  been  said 
that  no  great  Jewish  fortune  is  ever  permanent ; 
that  none  of  these  millionaires  ever  founded  a 
family.  This  is  not  quite  true ;  but  it  is  true  that 
considering  the  long  list  of  great  Jewish  fortunes 
which  have  marked  the  whole  progress  of  our 
civilization  it  is  astonishing  how  few  have  taken 
root.  But  though  this  conception  of  money  may 
be  an  element  in  the  generosity  of  the  Jew  it  does 
not  fully  explain  it,  and  at  any  rate  that  generosity 
is  there,  and  contradicts  flatly  the  accusation  of 


78  THE  JEWS 

avarice.  Indeed  the  general  accusation  of  avarice 
fails :  and  that  is  why  it  is  a  sort  of  standing  jest 
permitted  even  where  the  Jews  are  most  powerful. 
It  is  a  jest  they  themselves  do  not  resent  because 
they  know  it  to  be  beside  the  mark. 

The  accusation  of  treason  is  on  the  same  footing 
— save  that  it  is  even  more  "  to  one  side  "  than 
the  others  quoted.  There  is  no  race  which  has 
produced  so  few  traitors.  It  is  not  treason  in  the 
Jew  to  be  international.  It  is  not  treason  in  the 
Jew  to  work  now  for  one  interest  among  those  who 
are  not  of  his  people,  now  for  another.  He  can 
only  be  charged  with  treason  when  he  acts  against 
the  interests  of  Israel,  and  there  is  no  nation  nor 
ever  has  been  one  in  which  the  national  solidarity 
was  greater  or  national  weakness  in  the  shape  of 
traitors  less.  Indeed,  that  is  the  very  accusation 
their  enemies  make  against  them;  that  they  are 
too  homogeneous;  that  they  hold  too  much 
together  and  are  too  fierce  in  self-defence ;  and  you 
cannot  have  that  accusation  coupled  with  an 
accusation  of  treason.  What  is  true  is  that  the 
Jew  lends  himself  to  one  non- Jewish  group  in  its 
action  against  another.  He  will  serve  France 
against  the  Germans,  or  the  Germans  against 
France,  and  he  will  do  so  indifferently  as  a  resident 
in  the  country  he  benefits  or  the  country  he  wounds  : 
for  he  is  indifierent  to  either.  The  moment  war 
breaks  out  the  intelligence  departments  of  both 
sides  rely  upon  the  Jew :  and  they  rely  upon  him 
not  only  on  account  of  his  indifference  to  nationalism 
but  also  on  account  of  his  many  languages,  his 
travel,  the  presence  of  his  relations  in  the  enemy 
country.  And  this  is  true  not  only  of  war  but  of 
armed  peace. 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    79 

But  it  is  clear  that  in  all  this  there  are  examples 
of  what  m  us ,  would  be  treason.  In  him  such  actions 
are  not  treasons,  for  he  does  not  betray  Israel. 
But  they  all  have  an  atmosphere  repellent  to  us. 
They  are  things  which  if  we  did  them  ( or  when  we 
do  them)  degrade  us.  They  do  not  degrade  the 
Jew. 

One  might  continue  the  list  of  such  accusations 
indefinitely,  and  in  every  one  you  would  find  that 
the  root  of  the  quarrel  is  not  the  presence  of  a 
particular  defect  but  the  presence  of  a  difference  in 
circumstances,  temperament,  character:  a  dif- 
ferent colour  and  taste  in  the  quality  or  defect 
concerned.  It  is  that  which  offends.  It  is  that 
which  causes  the  misunderstandings  and  which 
leads  to  the  tragedies. 

While  this  is  true  of  the  accusations  made  against 
the  Jewish  people  it  is  unfortunately  equally  true 
of  the  corresponding  qualities  which  they  and  their 
defenders  advance  in  the  rebuttal.  The  Jew  is 
essentially  patriotic :  that  is  true.  But  not  patri- 
otic to  our  ends  or  in  our  way.  He  is  essentially 
self-respecting.  But  not  self-respecting  to  our 
ends  or  in  our  way.  A  personal  obligation  which 
he  cannot  meet,  a  personal  and  intimate  contract 
in  which  he  may  default,  especially  to  one  of  his  own 
people,  is  abhorrent  to  the  Jew ;  but  not  in  our 
way.  He  has  not  our  shame  of  bankruptcy  for 
instance,  but  much  more  than  our  shame  of  personal 
borrowing.  Drunkenness,  a  vice  most  offensive  to 
human  dignity,  is  with  him  the  rarest  vice :  with 
us  the  commonest.  But  our  sense  of  dignity  in 
repose  he  has  not,  nor  does  he  feel  our  sense  of 
injured  dignity  in  mummery.  His  tenacity,  which 
all  know  and  all  in  a  sense  admire  and  which  is  far 


80  THE  JEWS 

superior  to  our  own,  is  also  a  narrower  tenacity, 
or  at  any  rate  a  tenacity  of  a  different  kind.  He 
will  follow  one  end  where  we  will  follow  many. 
His  wonderful  loyalty  to  all  family  relations  we 
know:  but  we  do  not  appreciate  it  because  it  is 
outside  our  own  circle.  Even  his  intellectual  gifts, 
which  are  less  affected  by  this  matter  of  timbre, 
have  something  alien  to  us  in  them.  They  are 
undeniable  but  we  feel  them  to  be  used  for  other 
ends  than  ours :  they  are  coldly  used  when  ours 
are  used  enthusiastically:  they  are  used  with 
intensity  when  we  use  them  with  carelessness. 

If  we  leave  the  controversial  field  and  concern 
ourselves  with  an  appreciation  of  Jewish  qualities, 
apart  from  our  like  or  dislike  of  them  and  apart 
from  their  difference  in  intimate  texture,  as  it  were, 
from  our  own,  they  may  be  summarized  I  think 
as  follows:  — 

The  Jew  concentrates  upon  one  matter.  He  does 
not  disperse  his  mind.  And  this  concentration 
carries  with  it  strength  and  weakness.  It  has  been 
said  in  connection  with  it  (all  such  terms  are 
metaphorical)  that  his  mind  is  not  elastic.  But 
this  is  a  great  element  in  his  success.  I  have 
noticed  that  the  Jew  having  once  taken  up  a 
particular  task  shows  an  indifference  to  other 
tasks  which,  from  our  standpoint;  is  marvellous. 
How  many  instances  could  not  one  cite  of  two 
Jewish  brothers,  the  one  occupied  in  finance,  the 
other  in  science,  or  the  one  in  politics,  the  other  in 
music,  and  how  clearly  do  we  see  in  those  instances 
the  complete  indifference  of  the  Jew  to  things 
outside  the  province  he  has  undertaken !  How 
remarkable  in  our  eyes  is  his  resistance  to  any 
temptation  which  might  lead  him  away  from  his 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    81 

end.  The  Jew  who  is  devoted  to  science,  for 
instance,  remains  completely  indifferent  to  its 
opportunities  for  enricliment.  The  Jew  who  is 
devoted  to  philosophy  (and  what  great  names  he 
can  show  m  this  sphere  throughout  the  centuries  !) 
lives  in  poverty  and  is  perfectly  content  so  to  live. 
The  Jew  devoted  to  any  particular  ideal  of  social 
change  devotes  himself  entirely  to  that,  and  ends 
his  task  often  more  powerful,  hardly  ever  more 
wealthy,  nearly  always  much  poorer  than  when  he 
began  it.  Above  all  he  refuses  to  be  distracted 
for  a  moment  from  his  goal. 

Another  character  which  is  affiliated  to  this  first 
leading  character  of  the  Jew  would  seem  to  be  the 
lucidity  of  his  thought.  The  Jew's  argument  is 
never  muddled.  That  is  one  of  his  prime  assets 
not  only  in  all  discussion  but  in  all  action.  It  is 
also,  if  a  cause  of  strength,  a  cause  of  the  enmity 
he  arouses:  or  (to  use  my  milder  term)  of  the 
"  friction." 

For  an  exactly  constructed  process  of  reasoning, 
from  which  there  is  no  escape,  has  in  it  (for  those 
less  capable  of  it)  something  of  the  bully.  A  man 
may  feel  the  conclusion  to  be  false:  perhaps  he 
knows  it  to  be  false.  He  lacks  the  power  to  express 
his  reasons.  He  may  not  know  how  to  state  the 
principles  which  his  adversary  has  left  out  of  account, 
or  when  to  bring  them  into  discussion,  and  he  feels 
the  iron  logic  offered  to  him  like  a  pistol  presented 
at  the  head  of  his  better  judgment.  But  for 
strength  and  for  weakness  also,  lucidity  is  the  mark 
of  the  Jew's  mind.  He  carries  that  lucidity  into 
the  smallest  details  of  whatever  he  may  perform. 

One  must  add  to  all  this  a  certain  intensity  of 
action  which  is  very  noticeable  and  which  again  is  a 


82  THE     JEWS 

cause  of  friction  between  himself  and  those  about 
him.  Hear  a  Jew  speaking,  especially  a  Jew 
speaking  upon  the  revolutionary  platform,  and  note 
the  high  voltage  at  which  the  current  is  working. 
The  energy  which  he  uses  is  not  the  energy  of  a 
large  flame  but  of  a  well-directed  blow- pipe:  a 
stream  of  heat.  He  is  wholly  absorbed,  not  in  his 
own  expression,  but  in  actively  penetrating  the 
mind  of  his  hearers.  And  here  again  is  that  dif- 
ference in  quality  to  which  I  have  alluded.  One 
might  say  indifferently  that  the  Jew  is  never 
eloquent  or  that  he  is  always  eloquent  when  he 
speaks  upon  things  that  possess  his  soul.  He  is  not 
eloquent  in  our  fashion;  but  he  is  at  any  rate 
astonishingly  effective  in  his  own. 

The  Jew  has  this  other  characteristic  which  has 
become  increasingly  noticeable  in  our  own  time, 
but  which  is  probably  as  old  as  the  race :  and  that 
is  a  corporate  capacity  for  hiding  or  for  advertis- 
ing at  will:  a  power  of  "  pushing"  whatever  the 
whole  race  desires  advanced,  or  of  suppressing  what 
the  whole  race  desires  to  suppress.  And  this  also, 
however  legitimately  used,  is  a  cause  of  friction. 

Men  get  the  feeling  of  a  swarm  in  the  presence 
of  such  action.  They  also  get  the  feeling  of  being 
tricked :  and  it  breeds  bad  blood. 

In  the  aspect  of  the  deliberate  use  of  secrecy  I 
shall  deal  with  this  character  in  my  next  chapter, 
for  I  think  in  that  aspect  it  is  a  particular  cause  of 
friction  which  can  be  eliminated.  But  the  general 
capacity  and  instinct  of  the  Jew  for  corporate  action 
in  the  "  booming"  of  what  he  wants  "  boomed" 
and  the  "  soft  pedalling"  of  what  he  wants  "  soft 
pedalled  "  is  ineradicable.  It  will  always  remain  a 
permanent  irritant  in  its  effect  upon  those  to  whom 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FEICTION    83 

it  is  applied.  The  best  proof  of  it  is  that  after  the 
most  violent  "  boom,"  after  the  talents  of  some 
particular  Jew,  or  the  scientific  discovery  of  another, 
or  the  misfortunes  of  another,  or  the  miscarriage  of 
justice  against  another,  has  been  shouted  at  us, 
pointed  and  iterated  until  we  are  all  deafened,  there 
comes  an  inevitable  reaction,  and  the  same  men  who 
were  half  hypnotized  into  the  desired  mood  are 
nauseated  with  it  and  refuse  a  repetition  of  the 
dose. 

The  converse  is  true.  Men  who  find  that  some 
important  matter  has  been  suppressed,  some  bad 
scandal  in  the  State  or  some  trick  in  commerce 
because  Jewry  desired  it  to  be  suppressed,  are  soon 
on  the  alert.  They  will  not  suffer  the  operation  as 
quietly  the  second  time  as  they  did  the  first. 
Indeed  they  tend  if  anything  to  grow  too  suspicious. 
Anyhow,  in  both  cases  this  ineradicable  racial 
habit,  a  cause  perhaps  of  Jewish  survival  and 
certainly  an  element  of  Jewish  strength,  is  also  a 
cause  of  acute  friction  between  them  and  us. 

But  a  mere  category  of  this  kind  is,  as  I  have 
said,  useless  to  explain  the  fundamental  quality, 
the  hidden  root,  of  the  ceaseless  conflict  between  the 
very  soul  of  the  Jew  and  the  soul  of  the  society 
around  him.  All  these  points  are  but  manifesta- 
tions of  some  profound,  some  subterranean  power 
for  contrast,  the  value  of  which  we  cannot  grasp, 
but  the  effects  of  which  are  only  too  apparent.  And 
there  remains  in  the  minds  of  those  who  most  rely 
upon  this  race  and  of  those  who  most  suspect  them 
the  sense  of  an  impassable  gulf  between  them  and 
ourselves.  It  is  the  recognition,  the  admission  of 
such  a  contrast,  the  telling  of  the  truth  about  it, 
the  working  upon  it  as  a  necessary  condition,  which 


84  THE  JEWS 

must  form  the  foundation  for  any  solution  at  which 

we  can  arrive. 

***** 

There  is  one  feature  in  the  European's  attitude 
towards  the  Jews  which  must  be  specially  dealt 
with,  and  that  is  the  false  impression  that  the 
friction  between  us  and  them  is  in  the  main  a 
quarrel  with  their  wealth. 

That  impression  has  been  greatly  weakened  by 
the  recent  revolutionary  activity  of  the  Jew  surging 
up  from  the  depths,  appearing  upon  the  surface, 
and  producing  the  great  upheaval  in  Russia,  and 
the  attempted  upheavals  elsewhere.  But  though 
the  new  Jewish  revolutionary  movement  has 
shaken  the  old  insistence  on  Jewish  wealth  it  is 
hard  to  eradicate  it.  It  has  been  present  through- 
out the  ages,  and  will  remain  at  the  back  of  people's 
minds  perhaps  for  ever,  because  the  few  Jews  who 
do  concentrate  on  piling  up  great  fortunes  concen- 
trate on  that  task  so  entirely.  Yet  the  impression 
is  false  and  is  the  fruitful  cause  of  the  worst  mis- 
understandings. 

For  the  Jews  are  not  a  rich  nation,  and  the  very 
fact  that  they  stand  in  the  popular  mind — ^and 
especially  in  the  mind  of  rich  people  in  times 
of  corruption — ^for  wealth,  is  an  example  of  the 
way  in  which  they  are  misunderstood  and  of  the 
way  in  which  injustice  to  the  Jew  arises. 

The  Jews  are  a  poor  nation.  An  enemy  would 
say  that  they  were  poor  because  they  did  not 
work,  but  this  again  would  be  an  injustice,  because 
the  Jew  works  exceedingly  hard  and  has  often  in 
the  past  and  does  still  in  many  places  work  hard, 
not  only  in  negotiation  and  commerce  but  with 
his  hands. 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    85 

We  see  the  Jews  in  the  Middle  Ages  monopolizing 
important  manual  occupations  in  some  districts 
— dyeing  and  shipbuilding,  for  instance.  And 
there  are  many  parts  of  Eastern  Europe  where 
they  work  upon  the  land  to-day. 

The  Jews  are  a  poor  nation  because  they  are  an 
alien  nation  and  because  their  activities  are  for 
the  most  part  condemned  to  working  against  the 
grain,  in  a  society  which  is  not  their  own.  But 
that  they  are  a  poor  nation  is  not  only  true  but 
abundantly  evident  to  any  one  who  has  travelled 
and  watched  their  various  settlements  with  any 
sympathy. 

Now  that  they  have  arrived  in  such  great 
numbers  in  the  West  people  are  beginning  to 
appreciate  this.  We  have  already  seen  how,  a 
lifetime  ago,  when  the  Jews  of  the  West  (I  mean 
especially  in  France  and  England  and  America) 
were  a  small  number  of  merchants  and  financiers, 
the  great  wealth  of  a  very  small  number  among 
them  was  not  counterbalanced  in  our  experience 
by  the  exceeding  poverty  of  the  mass.  But  to-day 
we  can  see  for  ourselves  how  true  it  is  that,  once 
you  get  below  the  exceptional  fortunes  and  a 
comparatively  small  middle- class,  the  Jewish  nation 
is  no  more  than  millions  of  exceedingly  poor 
families. 

Those  who  have  watched  them  outside  the  West, 
those  who  have  seen  them  in  their  great  eastern 
communities  where  the  bulk  of  the  race  still  resides, 
in  the  Marches  of  Russia,  will  abundantly  agree. 
It  helps  us  to  understand  the  Jewish  problem  if 
we  grasp  the  fact  that  a  great  part  of  the  Jewish 
complaint  against  us  is  precisely  this  poverty  to 
which  the  bulk  of  the  Jews  are  condemned.     It  is 


86  THE  JEWS 

all  very  well  to  sneer  at  the  Jewish  complaint  of 
persecution  and  oppression  and  to  cite  ironically, 
whenever  it  arises,  the  immense  fortunes  of  a  few 
families  like  the  Rothschilds  and  the  Sassoons, 
the  Monds,  the  Samuels  and  the  rest.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  the  average  Jew  that  is  not  the 
way  the  thing  looks  at  all.  What  he  notices,  and 
notices  rightly,  is  that  he  has  no  part  in  that  well- 
distributed,  solid,  permanent,  inherited  wealth 
which  is  the  mark  of  a  healthy  European  com- 
munity. 

Further  (a  most  important  point  already  touched 
on  in  passing),  these  great  fortunes  are  ephemeral. 

In  the  European  nations  you  have  a  mass  of 
great  fortunes  far  larger  in  number,  and  even  in 
total,  than  the  Jewish  financial  fortunes.  But 
those  great  fortunes  have  been  in  the  past  and  are 
still,  wherever  our  society  is  healthy,  permanent. 
They  run  through  European  history  in  the  shape 
of  the  great  families,  in  the  shape  of  the  nobility. 

The  great  territorial  families  in  this  country 
have  been  wealthy  for  centuries  and  remain  in 
established  wealth,  and  the  same  is  in  the  main 
true  of  the  great  Italian  families,  it  is  obviously 
true  of  the  great  German  families,  and,  in  spite  of 
the  great  changes  of  the  last  century  and  a  half, 
it  is  still  largely  true  of  the  old  French  families. 
It  is  not  true  of  the  Jewish  families.  The  vast 
Jewish  fortunes  which  have  marked  history  rise 
suddenly  and  melt  again  almost  as  suddenly.  A 
Jew  will  begin  in  some  very  small  way — as  a 
pawnbroker  in  Liverpool,  for  instance,  or  a  very 
small  bookseller  in  Frankfort.  You  will  find  his 
son  a  great  banker,  his  grandson  so  wealthy  as  to 
command  politics  for  a  generation,  and  then  (if  you 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    87 

will  watch  the  process  in  the  past — ^to  take  a  modern 
unfinished  instance  is  of  course  misleading)  at  last, 
and  soon,  the  name  disappears  again,  and  disappears 
for  ever. 

Whom  have  you  representing  to-day  the  few  groat 
Jewish  fortunes  of  the  early  Middle  Ages  in 
England  ?  They  were  all  ruined  before  the  end 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  Whom  have  you  repre- 
senting the  later  great  Jewish  fortunes  on  the 
Rhine,  the  fortunes  of  the  sixteenth  century  and 
the  early  seventeenth  ?  They  have  utterly  gone. 
Who  have  you  left  representing  the  considerable 
Jewish  houses  of  Medieval  Venice  ?  of  Genoa  ?  of 
Rome? 

The  causes  of  this  rapid  fluctuation  are  many. 
They  all  attach  to  the  peculiar  position,  as  well  as 
to  the  peculiar  character,  of  the  Jew.  We  find 
them  partly  in  the  passion  for  speculation  which 
the  Jewish  intelligence  naturally  harbours.  We 
find  them  still  more,  I  think,  in  the  instinctive 
opposition  to  the  Jew  which  his  alien  surroundings 
perpetually  arouse. 

It  is,  however,  important  to  remember  this  last 
point.  From  our  point  of  view  the  Jew,  when  he 
does  get  rich,  seems  to  get  much  too  rich  and  to 
get  rich  much  too  quickly,  and  he  exercises  far 
too  much  power  through  his  wealth ;  for  we  think 
of  him  the  whole  time  as  an  alien  with  no  right  to 
any  position.  But  the  Jew  sees  it  in  a  very  different 
light.  In  his  point  of  view  his  effort  to  accumulate 
wealth  is  always  heavily  handicapped.  When  he 
succeeds  he  only  succeeds  through  his  own  tenacity 
and  the  patriotic  co-operation  of  his  fellows,  and 
he  always  holds  his  new-found  wealth  on  an  insecure 
tenure.     What  looks  to  us  like  the  breakdown  of  a 


88  THE  JEWS 

Jewish  fortune  through  speculation,  seems  to  the  Jew 
the  fatal  recurrent  result  of  unending  opposition. 

In  connection  with  the  illusion  of  a  wealthy 
Jewish  race,  you  have,  of  course,  the  matter  which 
I  briefly  mentioned  above,  the  connection  between 
our  wealthier,  and  therefore  governing  classes,  and 
the  Jewish  wealth  of  the  moment.  A  great  part 
of  the  illusion,  as  I  have  said,  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  gentry  of  every  epoch  come  into  contact 
with  the  Jew  only  as  a  rich  man,  and  it  is  the 
capital  modern  vice  of  our  own  gentry,  their  passion 
for  mere  wealth  and  their  subservience  to  it,  which 
has  largely  accounted  for  this  dangerous  misunder- 
standing. 

Look  around  you  in  Western  Europe  to-day  and 
see  what  people  mean  by  this  story  of  Jewish 
wealth.  See  who  the  people  are  that  allude  con- 
tinually to  it  and  spread  the  idea  of  it.  They  are 
the  rich  Europeans,  who,  in  their  subservience  to 
crude  wealth,  in  their  habit  of  gauging  everything 
by  that  wealth  and  of  submitting  to  almost  any 
indignity  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  more  wealth, 
marry  their  daughters  to  Jews,  serve  Jewish 
interests,  and,  while  perpetually  sneering  at  the 
Jew  behind  his  back,  call  him  to  his  face  by  his 
most  intimate  name  and  make  the  most  of  his 
hospitality.  Which  of  them  ever  knows  a  middle- 
class  Jew,  let  alone  a  poor  Jew  ?  Why,  most  of 
them  are  actually  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  this 
mass  of  poor  Jews  exists  at  all !  They  serve  the 
Jew  when  he  is  wealthy  and  only  when  he  is 
wealthy.  They  envy  him  basely  as  a  wealthy 
man  and  only  as  a  wealthy  man.  They  prostitute 
their  dignity,  they  sell  their  fellow-Europeans,  not 
from  any  genuine  affection  for  the  Jewish  race — 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OE  FRICTION    89 

indeed  there  is  no  class  in  the  community,  closely 
intermixed  with  the  Jews  as  they  are,  which  feel 
the  friction  more  than  the  gentry — but  simply 
from  a  thirst  for  money,  which  they  happen  to  find 
held  in  great  masses  by  a  few  Jewish  families. 

It  is  most  noticeable  that  other  aspects  of  Jewish 
activity  remain  unused  by  the  wealthy  class,  the 
gentry — and  therefore  by  the  State.  Whether  it 
would  be  wise  to  use  them  or  not  is  another  matter. 
At  any  rate,  the  motive  for  leaving  them  unused 
is  the  fact  that  they  are  not  connected  with  wealth. 
The  Jewish  intelligence  which  might  so  often  have 
served  the  policy  of  a  Statesman  is  largely  left 
unused.  The  cosmopolitan  position  of  the  Jew 
when  it  is  used  is  used  for  little  more  than  spying ; 
and  that  profound  force,  the  historical  memory  of 
the  Jew,  is  neglected  almost  altogether.  With  this 
neglect  goes  a  natural  and  evil  result,  the  failure 
on  the  part  of  the  European  governing  classes, 
especially  to-day,  to  safeguard  the  community 
against  the  troubles  which  are  bound  to  arise  from 
the  clashing  of  interests  between  the  Jews  and 
the  people  among  whom  they  dwell. 

It^may  sound  paradoxical,  but  it  is  true,  that  if 
the  Statesmen  of  Europe,  and  the  hereditary 
families  of  the  European  nations  who  still  take  so 
much  part  in  the  conduct  of  those  nations,  had 
thought  less  of  the  Jewish  money  power  and  more 
of  the  Jews  as  a  whole  they  would  have  benefited 
both  parties  in  a  very  different  fashion.  We  have 
seen  the  artificial  protection  of  the  Jews  of  Eastern 
Europe  because  individual  Statesmen  have  been 
subservient  to  the  commands  of  very  rich  individual 
Jewish  bankers.  But  the  thing  has  been  done 
blunderingly.     It  has  served  only  to  anger  the 


90  THE  JEWS 

independent  nationalities  of  the  East,  notably  the 
Poles,  the  Eoumanians  and  the  Hungarians  who 
have  experience  of  the  difficulties  inseparable  from 
an  alien  minority.  Our  politicians  have  treated  the 
whole  afiair  externally  and  mechanically,merely 
obeying  orders  without  trying  to  understand. 

The  ultimate  result  of  such  interference  by  our 
"Western  politicians  is  unhappily  certain.  The 
last  state  of  the  Jews  in  Eastern  Europe  will  be 
worse  than  the  first.  Their  sufferings  will  be 
greater  than  in  the  past,  and  that  because,  instead 
of  acting  from  attempted  comprehension  and 
sympathetic  comprehension  of  the  Jewish  difficul- 
ties the  politicians,  who  have  acted  as  the  servants 
of  a  few  wealthy  Jews,  have  merely  obeyed  the 
orders  of  these  rich  men  and  have  done  so  with  the 
secret  reluctance  that  always  accompanies  self- 
surrender  to  a  wage. 

Is  it  not  apparent,  as  we  look  through  history, 
that  the  permanent  power  of  the  Jew  or,  at  any 
rate,  the  celebrity  of  his  nation  is  utterly  distinct 
from  those  chance  accumulations  of  wealth  which 
a  few  individuals  owe  to  the  national  passion  for 
speculation  and  a  cosmopolitan  position? 

One  after  another  the  striking  Jewish  names  of 
history  are  the  names  of  Jews  who  have  ardently 
pursued  some  moral  or  intellectual  thesis;  most 
of  them — ^I  had  nearly  said  all  of  them — ^w^ere  poor 
men,  and  for  the  most  part  men  deliberately  poor 
because  they  preferred,  as  it  is  in  the  Jewish  nature 
to  prefer,  the  immediate  work  in  hand  to  any  other 
consideration. 

It  is  these  names  that  remain  and  are  permanent 
and  are  the  glory  of  the  Jewish  race. 

4c  ^  :):  »i<  :{: 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    91 

There  is  one  aspect  of  this  Jewish  wealth  which 
I  hesitate  whether  to  put  among  the  general  or 
among  the  particular  causes  of  the  friction  between 
that  nation  and  its  hosts. 

It  falls  certainly  among  the  general  causes  in 
the  sense  that  it  is  connected  with  the  Jewish 
character  as  a  whole  and  not  with  any  special 
method  in  that  character's  action.  It  is  connected, 
I  mean,  with  their  very  nature,  and  they  cannot 
change  that  nature.  On  the  other  hand,  it  might 
be  put  among  the  particular  causes  on  account  of 
its  quite  modern  and  probably  ephemeral  char- 
acter: it  is,  as  it  were,  a  particular  cause  of  the 
friction  proceeding  from  the  general  causes  of 
character  just  enumerated,  and  this  cause  of  friction 
is  the  presence  of  Jewish  Monopoly. 

It  is  an  exceedingly  dangerous  point  in  the 
present  situation.  I  do  not  think  that  the  Jews 
have  a  sufficient  appreciation  of  the  risk  they  are 
running  by  its  development.  There  is  already 
something  like  a  Jewish  monopoly  in  high  finance. 
There  is  a  growing  tendency  to  Jewish  monopoly 
over  the  stage  for  instance,  the  fruit  trade  in 
London,  and  to  a  great  extent  the  tobacco  trade. 
There  is  the  same  element  of  Jewish  monopoly  in 
the  silver  trade,  and  in  the  control  of  various  other 
metals,  notably  lead,  nickel,  quicksilver.  What 
is  most  disquieting  of  all,  this  tendency  to  monopoly 
is  spreading  like  a  disease.  One  province  after 
another  falls  under  it  and  it  acts  as  a  most  powerful 
irritant.  It  will  perhaps  prove  the  immediate 
cause  of  that  explosion  against  the  Jews  which  we 
all  dread  and  which  the  best  of  us,  I  hope,  are 
trying  to  avert. 

It  applies,  of  course,  to  a  tiny  fraction  of  the 


92  THE  JEWS 

Jewish  race  as  a  wliole.  One  could  put  the  Jews 
who  control  lead,  nickel,  mercury  and  the  rest  into 
one  small  room :  nor  would  that  room  contain  very 
pleasant  specimens  of  their  race.  You  could  get 
the  great  Jewish  bankers  who  control  international 
finance  round  one  large  dinner  table,  and  I  know 
dinner  tables  which  have  seen  nearly  all  of  them 
at  one  time  or  another.  These  monopolists,  in 
strategic  positions  of  universal  control  are  an 
insignificant  handful  of  men  out  of  the  millions  of 
Israel,  just  as  the  great  fortunes  we  have  been 
discussing  attach  to  an  insignificant  proportion 
of  that  race.  Nevertheless,  this  claim  to  an 
exercise  of  monopoly  brings  hatred  upon  the  Jews 
as  a  whole. 

The  thing  is  deservedly  hated  because  it  is 
exceedingly  unnatural  and  exceedingly  tyrannical. 
It  would  be  tyrannical  even  for  one  of  our  own 
people  to  hold  us  up  in  the  supply  of  things  essential 
to  us.  It  is  intolerable  in  a  people  alien  to  us. 
When  we  come  to  discuss,  in  the  next  chapter, 
the  unfortunate  use  of  secrecy  by  the  Jews  (the 
most  potent,  perhaps,  of  the  particular  causes 
which  have  lead  them  into  their  present  peril)  we 
shall  better  understand  another  odious  feature  in 
this  modern  monopoly  of  control,  which  is  the 
way  in  which  it  spreads  underground  and  out  of 
sight  leaving  the  world  in  general  ignorant  that 
this,  that  and  the  other  individual  Jew  is  its  master 
in  the  matter  of  some  essential  thing  which  he 
controls. 

To  put  it  plainly,  these  monopolies  must  be  put 
an  end  to. 

Before  the  Great  War  there  was  only  one  of 
which  Europe  as  a  whole  was  conscious,  and  that 


THE  GENERAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    93 

was  the  financial  monopoly.  Yet  here  the  mono- 
poly was  far  less  perfect  than  in  the  case  of  the 
metals.  The  Great  War  brought  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  educated  men  (who  took  up  public 
duties  as  temporary  officials)  up  against  the 
staggering  secret  they  had  never  suspected — the 
complete  control  exercised  over  things  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  nation's  survival  by  half  a  dozen 
Jews,  who  were  completely  indifferent  as  to  whether 
we  or  the  enemy  should  emerge  alive  from  the 
struggle. 

Incidentally,  the  wealth  of  these  few  and  very 
wealthy  Jews  has  been  scandalously  increased 
through  the  war  on  this  very  account.  And  at 
the  moment  in  which  I  write  the  French  press, 
which  has  a  longer  experience  in  the  free  discussion 
of  the  Jewish  question  than  any  other,  is  exposing 
the  abominable  increase  in  value  of  the  Rothschild' s 
lead  mines,  an  increase  mainly  due  to  the  use  of 
lead  for  the  killing  of  men. 

But  lead  is  only  one  of  the  monopolies,  as  I 
have  said.  A  whole  group  already  exists  and  the 
extension  of  the  system  is  going  on  as  rapidly  as 
an  epidemic.  Not  only  must  it  cease  before  any 
solution  of  the  Jewish  question  can  be  attempted, 
but  the  process  must  be  reversed.  If  the  various 
national  Cabinets  do  not  interfere  to  protect  these 
monopolies,  then  good-bye  to  any  attempt  at 
j  ustice  for  the  Jew.  In  the  legitimate  anger  against 
a  few  pitiful  dozens  among  the  worst  specimens 
of  the  nation,  Israel  as  a  whole  will  be  sacrificed. 

There  is  in  this  formation  of  monopolies,  as  in 
the  more  reputable  activities  of  the  nation,  even 
in  its  more  justly  famous  activities,  even  in  its 
glories,  that  element  of  racial  character  which  is 


94  THE  JEWS 

never  absent  from  any  Jewish  action.  And  that 
is  why  I  have  put  the  point,  modern  and  ephemeral 
as  it  is,  among  the  general  causes  of  trouble. 

The  reason  these  general  monopolies  are  formed 
by  Jews  is  that  the  Jew  is  international,  tenacious 
and  determined  upon  reaching  the  very  end  of  his 
task.  He  is  not  satisfied  in  any  trade  until  that 
trade  is,  as  far  as  possible,  under  his  complete 
control,  and  he  has  for  the  extension  of  that  control 
the  support  of  his  brethren  throughout  the  world. 
He  has  at  the  same  time  the  international  know- 
ledge and  international  indifference  which  further 
aid  his  efforts. 

But  even  were  the  quite  recent  monopolies  in 
metal  and  other  trades  taken,  as  they  ought  to  be 
taken,  from  these  few  alien  masters  of  them,  there 
would  remain  that  partial  monopoly  (it  is  not 
at  all  a  complete  monopoly)  which  a  few  Jews 
have  exercised  not  only  to-day,  but  recurrently 
throughout  history,  over  the  highest  finance: 
that  is,  over  the  credit  of  the  nations,  and  therefore 
to-day,  as  never  before,  over  the  whole  field  of  the 
world's  industry. 

Should  that  partial  financial  monopoly  remain 
uncorrected  it  will  produce  a  sufficient  hostility 
against  the  Jews  to  precipitate,  of  itself,  the  next 
general  attack  upon  them. 

It  may  be  argued  that  this  fear  is  groundless 
because  the  control  has  now  lasted  for  a  long  time. 
It  has  lasted  a  lifetime  even  in  its  present  hardly 
complete  form :  and  it  is  secure  because  its  opera- 
tions are  removed  from  general  observation,  and 
because  it  is  mixed  up  with  the  interests  of  all 
the  wealthier  classes. 


THE  GENEEAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    95 

I  am  afraid  these  arguments  will  not  hold. 
Although  the  Jewish  control  of  finance  is  not  a 
thing  which  touches  the  public  at  large,  yet  all 
educated  men  down  to  a  comparatively  low  stratum 
of  society  are  fully  aware  of  it,  and  every  man  who 
is  aware  of  it  resents  it.  It  is  resented  almost  as 
much  by  the  mass  of  poor  Jews  as  by  the  non- Jews, 
but  in  a  different  way. 

Again,  although  this  financial  monopoly  does  not 
directly  affect  the  economic  life  of  the  private 
citizen,  he  is  beginning  to  understand  more  and 
more  how  it  indirectly  affects  it.  It  affects  him, 
for  instance,  through  his  patriotism.  He  will  not 
submit  to  be  told  that,  in  order  to  suit  the  con- 
venience of  these  alien  bankers,  he  must  forgo  the 
rights  of  victory  and  allow  some  enemy  whom  he 
has  justly  chastised  to  escape  the  consequences  of 
that  chastisement.  Still  more  urgently  will  he 
deny  the  right  of  the  Jewish  bankers  to  interfere 
with  the  national  reparation  due  to  him  for  damage 
wantonly  done  in  the  course  of  hostilities. 

Again,  international  finance  does  not  live 
separate  from  private  activities.  It  touches  at  last 
a  mass  of  individual  enterprises,  and  through  those 
individual  enterprises  its  action  is  questioned  and 
examined  by  a  host  of  private  citizens. 

Yet  again,  the  Jews  who  thus  control  international 
finance  are  at  work  in  many  other  capacities.  For 
instance,  some  of  them  stand  behind  those  great 
Industrial  Insurance  schemes  which  are  so  detest- 
able to  the  mass  of  the  people.  Action  against 
these  may  arise  any  moment.  If  such  action 
comes  one  may  be  certain  that  the  individual 
attacked  will  be  remembered  in  his  capacity  of 
international  financier  quite  as  much  as  in  his 


96  THE  JEWS 

capacity  of  a  battener  upon  the  lapsed  premiums 
of  the  poor.  Sooner  or  later  the  character  of 
this  monopoly,  to  which  men  of  a  lifetime  ago 
were  indifferent  through  ignorance  but  of  which 
to-day  all  the  educated,  part  of  the  community 
is  aware  and  deeply  resents,  will  be  appreciated 
and  equally  resented  at  a  lower  level  still.  When 
society  is  sufficiently  filled  with  indignation  against 
it,  then  the  explosion  will  come.  If  that  explosion 
only  afiected  the  rich  Jews  immediately  concerned 
no  one  would  much  regret  it.  There  would  be 
little  harm  done.  But  the  trouble  is  that  it  will 
almost  certainly  affect  the  whole  nation  to  which 
those  individuals  belong. 

I  may  be  told  that  to  put  an  end  to  this  state 
of  affairs  is  impossible  so  long  as  parliamentary 
government,  with  its  profound  corruption,  endures ; 
that  the  only  force  capable  of  dealing  with  the 
plutocratic  evil  of  alien  monopoly  upon  this  scale 
is  a  king;  and  that  a  king  we  have  not,  among 
modern  nations.  To  which  I  answer  that  the 
parliamentary  system  will  not  last  for  ever.  It  is 
already  in  active  dissolution  among  ourselves,  and 
badly  hit  elsewhere.  The  king  may  not  be  so  far 
off  as  people  think  him  to  be. 

At  any  rate,  in  one  way  or  another  the  thing  will 
cease,  and  will  probably  cease  in  violence.  The 
danger  is  that  if  it  ceases  in  violence  a  vast  number 
of  innocent  will  be  involved  with  the  guilty. 


THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES  OF 
FRICTION 


H 


CHAPTEE  V 

THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION 

Theee  are  two  special  forces  upon  the  Jewish 
side  which  nourish  and  exasperate  the  inevitable 
friction  between  the  Jewish  race  and  its  hosts. 
It  will  be  well  to  deal  with  these  before  passing 
to  the  corresponding  forces  upon  our  side.  For  to 
find  a  remedy  it  is  necessary  to  diagnose  the  disease. 
The  two  main  Jewish  forces  which  exasperate 
and  maintain  the  sense  of  friction  between  the 
Jews  and  their  hosts  are  first  of  all  the  Jewish 
reliance  upon  secrecy,  and,  secondly,  the  Jewish 
expression  of  superiority. 

1.  The  Jewish  Reliance  upon  Seceecy 

It  has  unfortunately  now  become  a  habit  for 
so  many  generations,  that  it  has  almost  passed  into 
an  instinct  throughout  the  Jewish  body,  to  rely 
upon  the  weapon  of  secrecy.  Secret  societies, 
a  language  kept  as  far  as  possible  secret,  the  use 
of  false  names  in  order  to  hide  secret  movements, 
secret  relations  between  various  parts  of  the  Jewish 
body:  all  these  and  other  forms  of  secrecy  have 
become  the  national  method.  It  is  a  method  to 
be  deplored,  not  because  its  indignity  and  false- 
hood degrade  the  Jew — that  is  not  our  affair — 
but  rather  on  account  of  the  ill- effects  this  policy 

99 


100  THE  JEWS 

produces  on  our  mutual  relations.  It  feeds  and 
intensifies  the  antagonism  already  excited  by 
racial  contrast. 

But  before  we  go  further  it  is  essential  to  be  just ; 
for  no  one  understands  anything  if  he  attacks  it 
unjustly. 

The  Jewish  habit  of  secrecy — the  assumption 
of  false  names  and  the  pretence  of  non- Jewish 
origin  in  individuals,  the  concealment  of  relation- 
ships and  the  rest  of  it — ^have  presumably  sprung 
from  the  experience  of  the  race.  Let  a  man  put 
himself  in  the  place  of  the  Jew  and  he  will  see 
how  sound  the  presumption  is.  A  race  scattered, 
persecuted,  often  despised,  always  suspected  and 
nearly  always  hated  by  those  among  whom  it 
moves,  is  constrained  by  something  like  physical 
force  to  the  use  of  secret  methods. 

Take  the  particular  trick  of  false  names.  It 
seems  to  us  particularly  odious.  We  think  when 
we  show  our  contempt  for  those  who  use  this 
subterfuge  that  we  are  giving  them  no  more  than 
they  deserve.  It  is  a  meanness  which  we  associate 
with  criminals  and  vagabonds ;  a  piece  of  crawling 
and  sneaking.  We  suspect  its  practisers  of  desir- 
ing to  hide  something  which  would  bring  them 
into  disgrace  if  it  were  known,  or  of  desiring  to 
over- reach  their  fellows  in  commerce  by  a  form  of 
falsehood. 

But  the  Jew  has  other  and  better  motives. 
As  one  of  their  community  said  to  me  with  great 
force,  when  I  discussed  the  matter  with  him  many 
years  ago  at  a  City  dinner,  "  When  we  work  under 
our  own  names  you  abuse  us  as  Jews.  When  we 
work  under  your  names  you  abuse  us  as  forgers." 
The  Jew  has  often  felt  himself  so  handicapped 


THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    101 

if  he  declared  himself,  that  he  was  half  forced,  or 
at  any  rate  grievously  tempted,  to  a  piece  of  base- 
ness which  was  never  a  temptation  for  us.  Surely 
all  this  carefully  arranged  code  of  assumed  patro- 
nymics (Stanley  for  Solomon,  Curzon  for  Cohen, 
Sinclair  for  Slezinger,  Montague  for  Moses,  Benson 
for  Benjamin,  etc.,  etc.)  had  its  root  in  that. 

The  Jew  can  plead  something  further  in  extenua- 
tion of  this  practice.  Family  names  did  not  grow 
up  naturally  with  them,  as  with  us,  in  the  course 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Jew  retained,  as  we  long 
retained  in  the  middle  and  lower  ranks  of  European 
society,  the  simple  habit  of  possessing  one  personal 
name  and  differentiating  a  man  from  his  fellows 
by  introducing  the  name  of  his  father.  Thus  a 
Jew  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  Moses  ben 
Solomon,  just  as  the  Cromwells'  ancestor  of  the 
same  generation  was  Williams  ap  Williams.  He 
had  not  what  we  call  a  surname  or  family  name. 
In  the  same  way  until  varying  dates,  early  in 
France  and  England  and  other  Western  countries, 
much  later  in  Wales,  Brittany,  Poland  and  the 
Slav  countries  of  the  East,  a  man  was  known  only 
by  his  personal  name,  distinguished,  if  that  were 
necessary,  by  mentioning  also  the  name  of  his 
father,  or,  in  some  cases,  of  his  tribe. 

Properly  speaking  the  Jews  have  no  surnames, 
and  they  may  say  with  justice:  "  Since  we  were 
compelled  to  take  surnames  arbitrarily  (which  was 
the  case  in  the  Germanics  and  sometimes  else- 
where as  well),  you  cannot  blame  us  if  we  attach 
no  particular  sanctity  to  the  custom."  If  a  Jew 
of  plain  Jewish  name  was  compelled  by  alien  force 
to  take  the  fancy  name  of  Flowerfield,  he  is  surely 
free  to  change  that  fancy  name,  for  which  he  is 


102  THE  JEWS 

not  responsible,  to  any  other  he  chooses.  There 
was  a  good  reason  for  the  Government  to  force 
a  name  upon  him.  Only  thus  could  he  be  regis- 
tered and  his  actions  traced.  But  forced  it  was, 
and  therefore,  on  him,  not  morally  binding. 

All  this  is  true,  but  there  remains  an  element  not 
to  be  accounted  for  on  any  such  pleas.  There  are 
in  the  experience  of  all  of  us,  an  experience  repeated 
indefinitely,  men  who  have  no  excuse  whatsoever 
for  a  false  name  save  that  advantage  of  deceit. 
Men  whose  race  is  universally  known  will  unblush- 
ingly  adopt  a  false  name  as  a  mask,  and  after  a 
year  or  two  pretend  to  treat  it  as  an  insult  if  their 
original  and  true  name  be  used  in  its  place.  This 
is  particularly  the  case  with  the  great  financial 
families.  Some,  indeed,  have  the  pride  to  main- 
tain the  original  patronymic  and  refuse  to  change 
it  in  any  of  their  descendants.  But  the  great  mass 
of  them  concealed  their  relations  one  with  another 
by  adopting  all  manner  of  fantastic  titles,  and 
there  can  be  no  object  in  such  a  proceeding  save 
the  object  of  deception.  I  admit  it  is  a  form  of 
protection,  and  especially  do  I  admit  that  in  its 
origin  it  may  have  mainly  derived  from  a  necessity 
for  self- protection.  But  I  maintain  that  to-day 
the  practice  does  nothing  but  harm  to  the  Jew. 
There  are  other  races  which  have  suffered  persecu- 
tion, many  of  them,  up  and  down  the  world,  and 
we  do  not  find  in  them  a  imiversal  habit  of  this 
kind. 

Again,  who  can  say  that  the  bearing  of  a  Jewish 
name  to-day,  or  at  any  rate  in  the  immediate  past, 
is  or  was  a  handicap  in  commerce  where  Occidental 
nations  were  concerned  ?  And  as  for  the  Eastern 
nations,  the  Jews  there  are  so  sharply  differentiated 


THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES  OF  FKICTION    103 

that  a  false  name  can  be  of  no  service  merely  to 
hide  the  racial  character  of  its  bearer.  There 
must  be  another  motive  present. 

The  same  arguments  apply  for  and  against  other 
forms  of  secrecy.  A  man  may  plead  that  if  secrecy 
in  relationship  were  not  maintained  the  dislike  of 
Jews  would  lead  to  false  accusations.  The  Jew 
is  highly  individual,  especially  in  intellectual  affairs. 
He  takes  his  own  line.  He  expresses  his  opinions 
with  singular  courage.  And  such  individual  opin- 
ions will  often  differ  violently  from  those  of  men 
with  whom  he  is  most  closely  connected.  "  Why," 
I  can  understand  some  distinguished  Jewish  publi- 
cist in  England  saying,  ' '  should  I  be  compro- 
mised by  people  knowing  that  such-and-such  a 
Bolshevist  in  Moscow  or  in  New  York  is  my  cousin 
or  nephew  ?  I  am  conservative  in  temperament ; 
I  have  always  served  faithfully  the  state  in  which 
I  live;  I  heartily  disapprove  of  these  people's 
views  and  actions.  If  their  relationship  with  me 
were  known  I  should  fall  under  the  common  ban. 
That  would  be  unjust.  Therefore  I  keep  the 
relationship  secret." 

The  plea  is  sound,  but  it  does  not  cover  the 
ground.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  explain,  for  instance, 
the  habit  of  hiding  relationships  between  men 
equally  distinguished  and  equally  approved  in 
the  different  societies  in  which  they  move.  It 
does  not  explain  why  we  must  be  left  in  ignorance 
of  the  fact  that  a  man  whom  we  are  treating  as 
the  best  of  fellow-citizens  should  hide  his  connection 
with  another  man  who  is  treated  with  equal  honour 
in  another  country.  There  are  occasions  where 
national  conflicts  make  the  thing  explicable.  A 
Jew  in  England  with  a  brother  in  Germany  and  a 


104  THE  JEWS 

father  at  Constantinople  miglit  well  be  excused 
in  1915  for  calling  himself  Montmorency.  Yet 
we  note  that  often  where  there  is  most  need  to 
hide  the  connection,  the  connection  is  not  hidden 
at  all.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  openly  advertised. 
We  all  recollect  the  name  of  one  Jewish  financier 
who  was  most  unjustly  treated  during  the  war. 
He  had  faithfully  served  this  country  and  the 
breach  of  his  connection  with  it  was  (to  my  mind 
at  least,  and  I  think  to  most  people  who  can  judge 
the  matter)  a  very  bad  thing  for  Britain  in  the 
conflict.  Yet  there  was  here  no  change  of  name 
and  no  attempt  to  hide  the  connection  between 
himself  and  his  brother,  who  stood,  in  another 
capital,  for  the  financial  policy  of  our  enemies. 

Again,  the  Rothschilds,  present  in  the  various 
capitals  of  Europe,  have  never  pretended  to  hide 
their  mutual  relationships,  and  no  one  has  thought 
any  the  worse  of  them,  nor  has  this  open  practice 
in  any  way  diminished  their  financial  power. 

There  must  be  more  than  necessity  at  work; 
I  suggest  that  there  is  something  like  instinct, 
or,  at  any  rate,  an  inherited  tradition  so  strong 
that  recourse  to  it  seems  natural. 

Now  it  cannot  be  too  forcibly  emphasized  that 
secrecy  in  any  of  these  forms — working  through 
secret  societies,  using  false  names,  hiding  of  relation- 
ships, denying  Jewish  origin — specially  exasperates 
this,  our  own  race,  among  which  the  Jews  are 
thrown  in  their  dispersion.  It  is  invariably  dis- 
covered, sooner  or  later,  and  whenever  it  is  dis- 
covered men  have  an  angry  feeling  that  they  have 
been  duped,  even  in  cases  where  the  practice  is 
most  innocent  and  is  no  more  than  the  following 
of  something  like  a  ritual. 


THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    105 

I  doubt  whether  the  Jews  have  any  idea  how 
strongly  this  force  works  against  them.  If  a  man 
were  to  say  "  my  name  is  so-and-so;  my  father 
was  born  at  such-and-such  a  place  in  Galicia ;  my 
brother  is  still  there  in  such-and-such  a  business" 
— ^if  he  told  us  all  that,  he  would  not  suffer 
upon  our  appreciating  later  on  that  members  of 
his  family  abroad  were  connected  with  move- 
ments we  disapproved:  no,  not  even  with  a 
Government  in  active  hostility  to  our  own.  Every- 
body knows  the  international  position  of  the 
Jew.  Everybody  knows  that  he  cannot  avoid 
that  position.  Everybody  makes  allowances  for 
it.  And  I  conceive  that  the  abandonment  of  this 
habit  of  secrecy  is  not  only  possible  but  would 
be  very  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  whole 
race. 

Perhaps  its  most  absurd  form  (not  its  most 
dangerous  form)  is  the  secrecy  maintained  by 
distinguished  men  with  regard  to  their  Jewish 
ancestors.  They  and  their  Jewish  relations  often 
suppress  it  altogether  or,  at  best,  touch  on  it  rarely 
and  obscurely.  Why  should  they  act  thus? 
Take  the  case  of  two  men  at  random  out  of  hun- 
dreds whose  names  are  universally  known  and 
by  most  people  respected,  the  name  of  Charles 
Kingsley,  the  writer,  and  the  name  of  Moss-Booth, 
the  founder  of  the  Salvation  Army.  Here  are 
two  men  who  in  very  different  fields  played  a  great 
part  in  English  life  and  who  both  owed  their 
genius  and  nearly  all  their  physical  appearance 
to  Jewish  mothers.  I  should  have  thought  it  to 
the  advantage  of  the  Jewish  race  and  of  the  indi- 
viduals concerned  that  this  fact  should  be  widely 
known.     The  literary  abilities  of  Charles  Kingsley, 


106  THE  JEWS 

the  organizing  and  other  abilities  of  Booth  are 
not  lessened  in  people's  eyes,  but,  if  anything, 
enhanced,  by  a  knowledge  of  their  true  lineage. 
Yet  the  mention  of  that  lineage  is  treated  as  though 
it  were  a  sort  of  insult.  I  have  heard  it  wrung 
out  in  some  passionate  plea  for  the  Jewish  race 
as  a  proof  that  they  are  not  devoid  of  abilities, 
but  never  generally  published. 

Surely  it  would  be  more  sensible  to  emphasize 
in  every  possible  case  the  Jewish  or  partially 
Jewish  origin  of  men  who  distinguished  themselves, 
and  thus  to  show  under  what  a  debt  Europeans 
stand  to  the  Jewish  blood.  To  treat  the  matter 
as  a  sort  of  sacred  labyrinth,  as  a  mysterious 
temple  into  which  one  may  now  and  then  be 
allowed  to  peep  is  ridiculous.  The  Jews  cannot 
have  their  cake  and  eat  it  too.  If  it  is — surely 
it  must  be — in  their  eyes  a  matter  for  pride  to 
belong  to  blood  which  they  hold  to  be  superior 
and  to  a  tradition  of  such  immense  antiquity, 
then  it  cannot  be  at  the  same  time  a  matter  of 
insult.  Yet  the  convention  is  desperately  main- 
tained by  the  Jews  themselves.  If  a  man  tells 
me  that  he  hates  the  English,  and  in  reply  I  say, 
"  That's  because  you  are  an  Irishman,"  he  does 
not  fly  at  my  throat.  He  takes  it  as  a  matter  of 
course  that  the  history  of  the  EngUsh  government 
in  Ireland  excuses  his  expression.  So  far  from 
being  insulted  at  being  called  an  Irishman  he  would 
be  insulted  if  you  said  he  was  not  an  Irishman. 
And  so  it  is  with  many  another  nationality  which 
has  suffered  oppression  and  persecution.  I  can 
find  no  rational  basis  for  a  contrary  policy  in  the 
case  of  the  Jews.  Moreover  the  habit  does  this 
further  harm :    it  makes  men  ascribe  a  Jewish 


THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    107 

character  to  anything  they  dislike,  and  thus  extends 
undeservedly  the  odium  against  the  race. 

A  foreign  movement  against  one's  nation,  an 
unpopular  public  figure,  a  detested  doctrine,  are 
labelled  "  Jewish"  and  the  field  of  hate,  already 
perilously  wide,  is  broadened  indefinitely.  It  is 
useless  to  say,  "  The  Jews  do  not  admit  the  connec- 
tion, the  names  are  not  Jewish,  there  is  no  overt 
Jewish  element."  He  answers,  "  Jews  never  do 
admit  such  connection ;  Jews  admittedly  hide 
under  false  names  ;  Jewish  action  never  is  overt." 
And — as  things  are,  until  they  change — ^there  is  no 
denying  what  he  says.  His  judgment  may  be  as 
wild  as  you  will  ( I  have  heard  Sinn  Feiners  called 
Jews  !),  but,  so  long  as  this  wretched  habit  of  secrecy 
is  maintained,  there  is  no  correcting  that  judgment. 
A  universal  suspicion  is  engendered  and  spreads. 

Meanwhile  the  same  vice  drags  into  publicity 
every  ill-sounding  Jewish  act  and  name  and  leaves 
in  obscurity  the  honoured  names  and  useful  public 
actions  of  Jewry.  For  a  false  name,  like  a  forgery, 
advertises  itself. 

It  is  not  always  recognized  in  this  connection 
that  the  Jewish  "  booms,"  which  are  so  fruitful 
a  cause  of  exasperation,  depend  on  this  same  policy 
of  concealment  and  on  that  account  add  to  the 
volume  of  anger  as  each  new  trick  is  discovered. 

Not  that  the  objects  of  these  world-wide  cam- 
paigns are  unworthy  of  attention.  The  Jewish 
actor,  or  film- star,  or  writer  or  scientist  selected  is 
usually  talented ;  the  victim  of  injustice  whose 
case  is  advertised  on  the  big  drum  has  often  a 
genuine  grievance.  But  that  the  notice  demanded 
is  out  of  all  proportion  and  that  its  dependence 
on  Jewish  organization  is  always  kept  hidden. 


108  THE  JEWS 

So  mucli  for  the  element  of  secret  action.  A 
great  deal  more  might  be  written  upon  it,  but 
there  are  two  reasons  against  enlarging  thereon. 
First,  a  full  discussion  would  take  up  far 
too  much  of  my  space;  secondly,  it  would  tend 
to  add  what  I  particularly  wish  to  avoid  in  these 
pages,  I  mean  emphasis  upon  the  errors  of  the 
Jew.  It  would  continue  a  quarrel,  our  whole  object 
in  which  is  to  find  peace. 

2.  The  Expression  oe  Superiority  by  the  Jew 

This  is  a  very  different  matter.  The  mere 
sense  of  superiority  is  not  something  in  which  any 
special  policy  can  be  recommended,  because  it 
is  there  and  cannot  be  remedied.  It  is  part  of 
the  whole  position.  But  it  is  possible  to  restrain 
its  expression.  For  that  purpose  it  is  of  value 
to  defme  it,  to  put  it  upon  record  and  to  estimate 
its  effect  upon  our  issue. 

The  Jew  individually  feels  himself  superior  to 
his  non- Jewish  contemporary  and  neighbour  of 
whatever  race,  and  particularly  of  our  race ; 
the  Jew  feels  his  nation  immeasurably  superior 
to  any  other  human  community,  and  particularly 
to  our  modern  national  communities  in  Europe. 

The  frank  statement  of  so  simple  and  funda- 
mental a  truth  is  rarely  made.  It  will  sound, 
I  fear,  shocking  in  many  ears.  To  many  others 
it  will  sound  not  so  much  shocking  as  comic, 
and  to  many  more  stupefying. 

The  idea  that  the  Jew  should  think  himself 
our  superior  is  something  so  incomprehensible 
to  us  that  we  forget  the  existence  of  the  feeling. 
If  it  be  constantly  reiterated,  for  the  purpose 
of  dealing  with  this  great  political  difficulty,  it 


THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    109 

is  perhaps  reluctantly  admitted,  but  still  held  as 
sort  of  abnormal,  bewildering  truth.  I  contend 
that  the  forgetfulness  of  that  truth,  the  attempt 
to  solve  the  problem  without  that  truth  remaining 
constant  and  fixed  in  the  mind  of  the  statesman, 
is  in  a  very  large  measure  the  cause  of  our  failure 
in  the  past;  and  that  the  way  the  Jew  openly 
acts  upon  it  in  gesture,  tone,  manner,  social 
assertion,  is  a  very  important  factor  in  the  quarrel 
between  his  race  and  ours. 

Consider  the  attitude  of  statesmanship  in  the 
past  towards  this  vital  conflict.  In  every  such  atti- 
tude I  think  the  Jewish  conviction  of  superiority 
has  been  omitted. 

For  the  attitudes  taken  up  by  European  states- 
men in  the  past  towards  the  alien  Jewish  element 
in  their  midst  have  always  been  one  of  three  sorts  : — 

(1)  Either  they  have  acted  as  though  there  were 
no  Jewish  nation,  as  though  the  Jew  were  merely 
a  private  citizen  like  any  other  who  happened 
to  have  peculiar  opinions  and  customs  of  his  own 
but  who  was  not  substantially  different  from  the 
men  around  him. 

(2)  Or  they  have  attempted  to  suppress,  or  to 
expel,  or  to  destroy  the  Jew  with  ignominy  and 
violence. 

(3)  Or,  while  recognizing  the  existence  of  the 
Jewish  nation  as  something  separate  from  their 
own  fellow-nationals  whom  they  have  to  admin- 
istrate, the  statesmen  have  tried  to  arrive  at 
equilibrium  by  a  sort  of  pact  in  which  Jewish 
separateness  was  recognized,  hut  under  conditions 
of  disability. 

Now  in  all  these  three  methods  there  is  absent 
all  recognition  of  the  Jewish  feeling  of  superiority. 


no  THE  JEWS 

In  the  first  it  is  obviously  lacking  because  the 
whole  idea  of  a  Jewish  nation  is  absent.  It  is 
equally  obviously  lacking  from  the  second  method, 
that  of  persecution:  the  persecutor  instinctively 
acts  as  though  the  Jew  felt  himself  to  be  an  inferior. 
In  the  third  method  it  is  also  absent,  not  in  theory 
but  in  practice.  For  the  statesmen  who  have 
acted  thus  in  the  past  have  not  attempted  to  give 
the  Jews  a  separate  status  only,  they  have  in  point 
of  fact  nearly  always  given  them  an  inferior  status. 
By  so  doing  they  have  exasperated  the  Jewish 
national  sentiment. 

For  instance,  certain  nations  have  treated  Jews 
as  a  separate  people,  as  aliens,  by  forbidding  them 
untrammelled  residence,  and  enforcing  registration. 
But  when  it  came  to  taxation  or  freedom  from 
military  service,  then  there  was  no  special  recog- 
nition of  the  Jew. 

There  is  indeed  a  fourth  attitude  which  has 
occasionally  appeared  in  history  when  States 
have  been  in  active  decline  or  have  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  base  and  weak  men,  and  that  is  the 
exaggerated  flattery  and  support  of  a  few  power- 
ful wealthy  Jews  by  administrators  who  were 
bribed  or  cowed.  We  are  suffering  from  that 
to-day.  But  these  exceptional  cases  (they  have 
always  led  to  national  disaster)  do  not  form  a 
true  category  of  Statesmanship  in  the  matter. 
Nor  is  there  even  in  those  who  thus  actually  advan- 
tage a  few  Jews  above  their  own  fellow-citizens, 
and  give  them  special  prominence  and  power,  so 
much  a  recognition  of  the  Jewish  sense  of  superiority 
as  a  secret  hatred  of  their  Jewish  masters. 

Bitter  as  is  everywhere  the  secret  attack  on  the 
Jews  by  those  who  have  subjected  themselves  for 


THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION    111 

gain  or  publicity,  it  is  nowhere  so  bitter  as  in  the 
private  speech  of  the  politicians. 

It  would  seem  in  the  presence  of  so  many  failures 
in  policy,  and  all  these  failures  having  in  common 
the  non- recognition  of  this  Jewish  feeling,  that 
success  can  never  be  obtained  unless  we  fully 
allow  for  it.  I  submit  that  there  will  never  be 
peace  between  any  Jewish  alien  minority  and  the 
community  within  which  it  may  happen  to  reside 
until  those  who  administrate  that  community 
fully  accept,  and  studiously  avoid  the  exaspera- 
tion of,  this  state  of  the  Jewish  mind. 

In  statesmanship,  as  in  every  other  form  of 
human  activity,  exact  definition  is  of  the  first 
importance.  We  must  distinguish  at  the  outset 
between  this  Jewish  sense  of  superiority  and  any 
real  superiority.  The  statesman  is  not  concerned 
with  the  rightness  or  wrongness  of  the  Jewish 
attitude.  It  may  be  a  most  absurd  illusion,  or 
it  may  be  a  most  profound  vision.  He  has  nothing 
to  do  with  that.  Having  made  up  his  mind  that 
the  small  and  quite  alien  minority  must  be  tolerated 
and  must  be  allowed  to  live  as  happily  as  possible 
in  the  midst  of  a  community  from  which  it  so 
profoundly  differs,  his  next  duty  is  to  know  thor- 
oughly the  nature  of  the  material  upon  which  he 
is  acting  and  with  which  he  has  to  deal. 

He  may  smile  at  the  Jewish  sense  of  superiority ; 
he  may  even  be  privately  indignant;  but  he 
must  be  quite  sure  that  it  is  a  permanent  part  of  the 
nation  with  which  he  has  to  settle.  It  will  never 
be  removed.  The  Jew  in  the  East  End  of  London, 
the  poorest  of  the  poor,  feels  himself  the  superior 
of  the  magistrate  before  whom  he  is  hauled,  of  the 
policeman  who  keeps  order  in  the  streets,  and 


112  THE  JEWS 

immensely  the  superior  of  the  simple- faced  soldiers 
and  sailors,  whose  trade  is  the  most  typical  of  our 
own  race.  He  even  feels  himself  the  superior  of 
those  whom  he  better  understands — the  negotia- 
tors: the  people  who  live  by  cunning.  The 
expression  of  our  faces,  our  gesture,  our  manner; 
the  very  fact  that  our  minds,  less  acute,  are  also 
broader,  confirms  his  feeling. 

This  fixed  idea  of  superiority  which  appears  in 
every  phrase  and  implication,  is  taken  for  granted 
by  the  Jew.  It  is  felt,  I  say,  by  the  poorest  and 
most  oppressed,  the  least  rich  and  the  most  unfor- 
tunate of  the  Jewish  people  in  our  midst.  Unfor- 
tunately— and  this  is  the  crux — it  proceeds  to 
unrestrained  expression .  It  is  this  which  is  so 
violently  resented.  It  is  this  which  aggravates 
the  quarrel.  It  is  this  which  must  be  kept  in 
control  if  we  are  to  have  peace;  not  the  sense 
of  superiority,  that  is  ineradicable,  but  the  expres- 
sion of  it.  It  appears,  as  we  all  know,  with  extra- 
ordinary emphasis  in  the  action  and  manner  of 
the  few  very  wealthy  Jews  with  whom  the  directing 
classes  of  the  nation  are  better  acquainted.  But 
whether  he  be  a  rich  man  suffering  only  from  alien 
and  hostile  surroundings,  or  a  poor  man  sufiering 
from  all  the  lowering  forces  of  squalor,  of  destitu- 
tion and  of  contempt,  the  Jew  feels  himself  the 
potential  master  of  his  hosts  and  shows  it.  He 
reposes  in  the  same  confidence  as  was  felt  by 
Disraeli  when  he  said :  "  The  Jew  cannot  be 
absorbed ;  it  is  not  possible  for  a  superior  race  to 
be  absorbed  by  an  inferior."  But  unfortunately 
he  does  not  only  repose  on  that  foundation;  he 
also  acts  upon  it,  and  that  is  intolerable. 

We  must,  I  say,  allow  for  this  feeling  in  any 


THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES   OF  FKICTION    113 

settlement  we  make;  we  have  also  to  study  its 
consequences.  Otherwise  we  shall  be  baffled  by 
phenomena  which  would  seem  inexplicable.  But 
we  need  not  allow  for — on  the  contrary,  we  should 
actively  condemn — an  open  attitude  of  Jewish 
contempt  for  ourselves. 

Here  are  some  consequences  of  this  open 
expression  of  superiority — consequences  which  we 
all  discover  to-day  in  the  relations  between  the 
Jewish  people  and  ourselves  and  which  are  leading 
us  into  a  situation  very  dangerous  for  them  and 
for  us. 

First,  you  have  that  familiar  handling  of  Euro- 
pean things  by  the  Jew,  which  is  continually  stirring 
the  wrath  of  the  European  and  as  continually 
leaving  the  Jew  in  wonderment  what  possible 
harm  he  can  have  done.  Thus,  the  Jew  will 
write  of  our  religion,  taking  for  granted  that  it 
is  folly,  and  will  marvel  that  we  are  offended. 
He  will  appear  in  our  national  discussions,  not 
only  giving  advice,  but  attempting  to  direct  policy, 
and  will  be  puzzled  to  discover  that  his  indifference 
to  national  feeling  is  annoying.  He  will  postulate 
the  Jewish  temperament  as  something  which, 
if  different  from  ours,  must,  whether  we  like  it  or 
not,  be  thrust  upon  us. 

He  acts  in  all  these  things  as  every  one  acts 
instinctively  in  the  presence  of  those  whom  they 
take  for  granted  to  be  inferiors,  and  when  men 
talk  of  the  "  Jewish  insolence,"  or  the  "  Jewish 
sneer,"  they  imply  that  attitude.  We  are  wrong 
if  we  take  these  things  as  calculated  insult.  The 
action  of  the  Jew,  in  so  far  as  it  proceeds  from 
this  sense  of  superiority,  is  no  more  calculated  and 
no  more  deliberately  hostile  than  are  our  own  actions 


114  THE  JEWS 

whenever  we  find  ourselves  in  relations  which 
those  whom  we  think  inferior  to  ourselves.  But 
we  are  right  to  point  them  out,  to  resent  them, 
to  reprove  them,  and,  if  it  became  necessary,  to 
end  them. 

The  Jewish  problem  will  never  be  solved  unless 
we  make  allowances  for  the  sense  of  superiority, 
take  it  for  granted  as  an  unavoidable  evil,  and 
restrain  our  indignation  in  its  presence ;  but 
neither  will  it  be  solved  if  we  permit  its  more  and 
more  open  expression. 

Another  consequence  of  this  attitude :  The  Jew, 
on  account  of  it,  makes  no  effort  to  get  into  touch 
with  the  mass  of  the  race  in  the  midst  of  which 
he  may  happen  to  be  living.  He  is  content  to 
remain  separate  from  it,  and  thinks  he  cannot 
help  remaining  separate  from  them.  And  he 
shows  it.  He  consents  to  associate  with  the  elite, 
with  those  who  direct,  with  those  who  have  some 
special  sort  of  function,  but  it  seems  to  him  a  waste 
of  time  to  attempt  communion  with  the  rest. 
And  he  shows  it.  That  is  what  Renan  meant 
when  he  said  that  the  Jews  were  the  least  demo- 
cratic of  all  people.  Renan,  who  was  supported 
by  Jewish  money  and  lived,  while  he  was  doing 
his  best  work,  dependent  on  a  Jewish  publisher; 
Renan,  who  was  so  fascinated  by  the  history  of 
Israel,  and  who  decided  himself  to  become  a 
scholar  in  all  Hebraic  things,  understood  the  Jew 
not  at  all.  His  judgments  upon  them  are  invari- 
ably superficial  and  to  one  side  of  the  truth ;  the 
judgments  of  a  foreigner — ^an  admiring  foreigner 
but  not  a  sympathetic  foreigner.  And  when  he 
said  that  the  Jews  were  not  democratic  he  was, 
instead  of  passing  a  judgment  upon  an  intimate 


THE  SPECIAL  CAUSES   OF  FRICTION    115 

political  instinct  of  the  Jewish  people,  simply 
noting  an  external  phenomenon.  For  the  Jews 
are,  as  a  fact,  strongly  democratic — ^no  nation  more 
so — in  their  national  relations  among  themselves ; 
they  only  appear  undemocratic  to  us  because  they 
openly  look  down  on  us  among  whom  they  live. 
Another  form  taken  by  that  open  expression  of 
the  sense  of  superiority  among  the  Jews:  It 
lends  to  all  their  actions  in  our  State  a  certain 
assurance  and  solidity  which  vastly  strengthens 
their  power  of  resistance,  no  doubt,  but  also  pro- 
vokes their  misfortunes.  The  religious  interpreter 
of  history  might  say  that  they  had  been  specially 
endowed  with  this  sense  by  Providence  because 
Providence  intended  them  to  survive  as  a  national 
unit  miraculously,  in  the  face  of  every  disability ; 
to  remain  themselves  for  2,000  years  under  condi- 
tions which  would  have  destroyed  any  other 
people  in  perhaps  a  century:  and  yet  intended 
to  suffer.  The  rationalist  will  say  that  the  expres- 
sion of  a  sense  of  superiority,  and  the  power  of  resist- 
ance that  accompanies  it  are  but  different  names 
for  the  same  thing;  that  but  for  the  presence  of 
that  expression  of  superiority  the  resistance  could 
not  have  succeeded,  but  for  the  resistance  there 
could  have  been  no  persecution ;  that  there  was 
no  design  in  the  matter,  only  the  chance  presence 
of  a  particular  quality  which  has  produced  its 
necessary  and  logical  effect.  But  whichever  be 
the  true  explanation,  the  historical  fact  remains, 
that  this  sense  of  superiority  produced  an  open 
and  overweening  expression  of  it  whenever  the 
Jews  have  been  free  to  give  vent  to  their  feelings, 
and  that  while  it  has  had,  as  one  great  consequence, 
the   strengthening   of   the   identity,   permanence, 


116  THE  JEWS 

survival  of  the  Jewish  people,  it  has  also  had, 
for  another  great  consequence,  their  recurrent 
oppression  following  on  every  period  of  freedom. 

There  is  one  last  thing  to  be  said,  which  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  say  without  the  danger  of 
giving  pain  and  therefore  of  confusing  the  problem 
and  making  the  solution  more  difficult.  But  it 
must  be  said,  because,  if  we  shirk  it,  the  problem 
is  confused  the  more.  It  is  this:  While  it  is 
undoubtedly  true,  and  will  always  be  true,  that 
a  Jew  feels  himself  the  superior  of  his  hosts,  it  is 
also  true  that  his  hosts  feel  themselves  immeasur- 
ably superior  to  the  Jew.  We  can  only  arrive  at 
a  just  and  peaceable  solution  of  our  difficulties  by 
remembering  that  the  Jew,  to  whom  we  have 
given  special  and  alien  status  in  the  Common- 
wealth, is  all  the  while  thinking  of  himself  as  our 
superior.  But  on  his  side  the  Jew  must  recognize, 
however  unpalatable  to  him  the  recognition  may 
be,  that  those  among  whom  he  is  living  and  whose 
inferiority  he  takes  for  granted,  on  their  side  regard 
him  as  something  much  less  than  themselves. 

That  statement,  I  know,  will  be  as  stupefying  to 
the  Jew  as  its  converse  is  stupefying  to  us.  It 
will  seem  as  extraordinary,  as  incredible,  and  all 
the  rest  of  it ;  but  it  is  true,  and  it  is  a  permanent 
truth.  Unless  the  Jews  recognize  that  truth 
the  trouble  will  go  on  indefinitely.  There  is  no 
European  so  mean  in  fortune  or  so  base  in 
character  as  not  to  feel  himself  altogether  the 
superior  of  any  Jew,  however  wealthy,  however 
powerful,  and  (I  am  afraid  I  must  add)  however 
good.  True,  virtue  has  a  superiority  of  its  own 
which  cannot  be  hidden,  and  the  cruel,  or  the 
treacherous,  or  the  debauched  European  cannot 


THE   SPECIAL  CAUSES   OF  FRICTION    117 

but  feel  himself  morally  inferior  to  a  Jew  who  is 
just,  self- governed,  merciful,  generous,  and  the 
rest  of  it.  But  we  know  how  it  is  with  national 
feelings.  The  type  is  stronger  for  us  than  the 
individual;  and  while  we  may  recognize  certain 
superior  characteristics  in  the  individual,  we  are 
thinking  all  the  while  of  the  race,  of  the  communal 
form,  and  contrasting  our  own  with  the  alien 
form  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter. 

So  difficult  is  it  for  the  Jew  to  appreciate  this 
factor  in  the  problem  that  his  lack  of  appreciation 
has  been  almost  as  great  a  cause  of  difficulty  in 
the  past  as  the  same  lack  upon  our  side.  We 
seem  to  him  insolent  when,  in  our  own  eyes,  we 
are  merely  acting  normally  as  superiors. 

What  emotion  does  it  not  create,  I  wonder,  in 
some  Jewish  merchant  or  money- dealer  who  has 
purchased  a  high  directing  place  in  our  plutocracy 
when  he  discovers  from  the  gesture,  the  tone, 
the  expression  of  some  chance  poor  Englishman, 
perhaps  no  more  than  an  embarrassed  hack  writer, 
a  clear  feeling  of  superiority  ?  Must  it  not  seem 
to  him  mere  insolence?  "  What  possible  claim" 
(he  will  say  within  himself)  "  has  this goy,  and  a  poor 
unsuccessful  goy  at  that,  to  treat  me  as  though 
I  were  less  than  he !  I,  who  am  worth  millions, 
who  am  ruling  and  doing  what  I  will  with  his  own 
national  leaders,  who  dispose  of  his  State  very  much 
as  I  choose,  and  who  belong  to  that  nation  which 
is  wholly  above  all  others,  the  Jewish  people  ? " 
Everywhere  the  Jew  discovers  the  consequences 
of  this  feeling,  even  though  that  feeling  be  to  him 
so  incomprehensible  that  he  can  hardly  admit  its 
existence. 

Well,  whether  he  likes  to  admit  it  or  not,  it  is 


118  THE  JEWS 

there.  Individual  Jews  may  be  flattered  for  the 
sake  of  their  wealth  or  because  of  the  fear  of  them, 
in  which  a  commercial  community  stands.  Such 
Jews  as  mistake  the  current  printed  word  which 
they  read  for  the  spoken  words  they  never  hear 
may  fall  into  the  error  of  thinking  that  this  sense 
of  superiority  on  our  part  did  not  exist.  They 
must  be  warned,  if  ever  the  problem  is  to  be  solved, 
that  it  does. 

In  their  case,  just  as  in  ours,  a  right  solution  can 
only  be  arrived  at  by  the  frank  admission  that  the 
feeling  is  there  and  by  the  fixed  knowledge  that, 
whether  the  feeling  be  an  illusion  or  represent  a 
reality,  it  will  not  change ;  but  also  by  a  repression 
of  it  in  our  mutual  relations. 

We  may  add  to  our  summary  of  this  subtle  but 
profound  cause  of  disturbance  the  further  truth 
that  a  paradox  of  the  sort  is  to  be  found,  though 
perhaps  less  emphasized,  in  every  other  political 
problem.  The  diplomat  resident  in  a  foreign 
capital  has  to  consider  not  only  his  own  certitude 
that  his  hosts  are  inferior,  but  their  certitude 
of  their  own  superiority  to  him  and  his.  The 
general  in  the  field  may  be  certain  of  his  mastery 
over  an  opponent,  but  if  that  opponent  is  as  yet 
undefeated  he  will  do  ill  to  forget  that  he  is  matched 
by  a  confidence  equal  to  his  own.  Still  more  does 
the  negotiator  in  commerce  act  upon  this  principle 
and  recognize  it,  or  at  least  if  he  fails  to  do  so,  he 
invites  disaster.  For  when  the  commercial  man 
is  occupied  in  overreaching  his  neighbour,  his 
chances  of  success  very  largely  depend  upon  his 
treating  that  neighbour  as  though  he  really 
were  what  he  believes  himself  to  be.  He  may 
be   dealing  with   a   stupid  and   vain  man  easily 


THE   SPECIAL  CAUSES  OF  FRICTION     119 

to  be  overmatclied  and  impoverished,  but  if  he  lets 
it  appear  that  he  regards  his  proposed  victim  as  a 
vain  and  stupid  man,  then  he  will  miss  his  bargain. 

In  general,  there  is  no  success  over  others,  nor 
even  ( which  is  much  more  necessary),  any  permanent 
arrangement  possible  with  others,  unless  we  know, 
allow  for,  and  act  upon  the  self- judgment  of  others, 
however  wrong  we  may  believe  that  self- judgment 
to  be. 

It  is  clear  that  in  this  conflict  between  the  Jew 
and,  let  us  say,  the  European  (for  it  is  between 
the  Jew  and  the  white  Occidental  race  that  our 
present  problem  lies,  though  the  same  problem 
arises  with  all  other  races  among  whom  the  Jew 
may  find  himself),  both  parties  cannot  be  right. 
A  being  superior  to  the  race  of  man  and  looking 
on  our  petty  quarrels  might  be  able  to  decide 
which  of  the  two  opponents  were  nearer  reality, 
and  whether  we  are  the  better  justified  in  our 
contempt  of  the  Jew  or  the  Jew  in  his  contempt  of 
us.  But  in  working  out  our  own  solution  without 
the  aid  of  such  guidance,  there  is  no  rule  but  for 
both  parties  to  take  for  granted  what  each  regards 
as  an  illusion  in  the  other ;  to  restrain  its  expression 
for  the  sake  of  reaching  a  settlement ;  and  in  the 
settlement  they  arrive  at,  to  admit  as  a  factor 
necessarily  and  permanently  present  what  each 
still  secretly  regards  as  a  folly,  but  an  incurable 
folly,  in  the  other. 

The  alternative  to  such  self-restraint  is  a  falling 
back  into  the  old  circle  of  submission,  consequent 
anger  accompanied  by  shame  and  violence,  and 
these  followed  by  remorse. 


THE  CAUSE  OF  FRICTION 
UPON  OUR  SIDE 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  CAUSE  OF. FRICTION  UPON  OUR  SIDE 

Having  concluded  a  brief  review  of  the  causes  of 
friction  upon  the  Jewish  side,  we  must  turn  to  the 
cause  of  friction  upon  our  own. 

At  first  sight  it  might  seem  that  the  task  was 
superfluous.  Action  and  reaction  are  equal  and 
opposite.  If  you  have  shown  why  A  irritates  B, 
you  have  also  presumably  shown  why  B  irritates 
A.  Or  again,  if  you  regard  an  alien  minority  in 
a  community  as  an  irritant  (which  it  nearly  always 
is  and  which  it  certainly  is  in  the  case  of  the 
Jews),  you  have,  it  would  seem,  sufficiently  defined 
the  position  and  need  not  trouble  to  examine  what 
part  the  irritated  play  in  the  matter.  What  is 
parasitical  at  the  worst  preys  upon  the  general 
body,  at  the  best  disturbs  it.  The  general  body 
would  appear  passive.  It  has  no  part  in  the  business 
but  to  react  against  the  cause  of  the  disturbance 
and  if  possible  get  rid  of  it.  As  that  cause  is 
none  of  its  making,  one  need  not  seek  for  any 
responsibility  on  its  side. 

The  house  is  ours:  the  Jew  is  an  intruder  (an 
objector  may  say),  and  there  is  an  end  of  it. 

But  the  situation  is  not  as  simple  as  that.  Quite 
apart  from  the  fact  that  the  Jew  will  certainly  not 
allow  such  a  description  of  his  activity,  there  is 

123 


124  THE  JEWS 

tlie  obvious  truth  that  where  you  are  dealing  with 
two  human  factors,  that  is,  with  two  factors  which 
have  a  common  nature  and  therefore  common 
duties,  you  are  also  dealing  with  two  known  and 
analysable  organic  things.  You  are  also  dealing 
with  two  sets  of  wills,  and  these  wills  we  know  to 
be  free,  in  spite  of  sophists.  A  man  and  a  group 
of  men  can  do  well  or  ill,  both  absolutely,  and 
relatively  to  some  particular  question  in  hand; 
and  no  group  of  men  can  escape  responsibility 
in  relation  to  any  other  group  with  which  it  is  in 
contact.  It  is  certain  that  we  play  a  part  ourselves 
in  this  quarrel  between  us  and  the  Jews.  It  is 
a  part  which  is  in  a  measure  inevitable,  because  it 
proceeds  in  a  measure  from  the  mere  contrast 
between  two  racial  characters.  But  there  is  a 
remaining  part  which  can  be  remedied  by  the  action 
of  the  will. 

Though  we  cannot  change  that  element  which  is 
inherent  in  our  nature  any  more  than  the  Jews 
can  change  theirs,  yet  an  understanding  of  it  makes 
all  the  difference;  and  we  can  certainly  change 
those  elements  which  are  inherent  in  our  wills. 

The  proof  of  this  is  that  in  the  long  story  of  the 
relations  between  the  two  races,  there  have  been, 
in  various  times  and  places,  those  exceptional 
chapters  of  calm  to  which  I  have  alluded  on  an 
earlier  page,  and  these  could  not  have  been  main- 
tained had  not  the  causes  of  friction  been  modified 
on  either  side,  but  especially  upon  ours. 

All  that  cause  of  friction  which  arises  from  the 
mere  contrast  of  character  may  be  set  down  very 
briefly.  It  is  included  in  what  has  just  been  said 
on  the  general  causes,  the  difference  in  nature 
between  the  Jews  and  ourselves.     If  their  form  of 


CAUSE  OF  FRICTION  UPON  OUR  SIDE    125 

courage,  their  form  of  generosity >  their  form  of 
loyalty  is,  as  it  is,  of  a  different  quality  from  ours ; 
if  their  defects  show  the  same  difference  of  quality 
or  colour ;  if  we  perpetually  feel,  as  we  do  feel,  the 
friction  caused  by  this  contrast,  so  do  they,  pre- 
sumably, feel  a  corresponding  friction  in  their 
dealings  with  us.  We  shall  neither  of  us  be  able 
to  change  that  state  of  affairs.  We  must  admit  it, 
and  we  must  try  to  understand  its  nature. 

Above  all,  we  must  not  take  it  for  granted  that 
a  difference  from  ourselves  is  in  itself  an  evil  in 
another.  That  is  a  point  to  be  insisted  upon. 
When  we  are  dealing  with  inanimate  nature,  or 
with  unintelligent  animate  nature,  we  do  not 
ascribe  motive,  for  there  is  no  motive  to  ascribe. 
A  man  does  not  go  about  with  bitterness  in  his 
heart  against  wasps,  though  the  purpose  of  the 
wasp  is  very  different  from  the  purpose  of  the  man 
and  their  interests  clash.  He  does  not  call  the 
wasp  wicked,  nor,  save  as  a  relief  to  his  feelings, 
give  it  moral  names.  He  does  not  condemn  the 
wasp.  Still  less  does  he  condemn  all  wasps,  or 
anything  else  in  nature  around  him  that  works 
against  his  interest.  But  when  he  has  to  deal  with 
other  human  beings,  man  at  once  begins  to  ascribe 
a  motive.  He  must  do  so,  because  he  Imows  that 
motive  is  the  spring  of  all  human  action,  includ- 
ing his  o^vn.  When  that  motive  differs  from  his, 
contrasts  with  his  and  is  therefore  in  any  degree 
inimical  to  his,  he  is  inclined  to  ascribe  an  evil 
motive.     All  that  is  a  truism  as  old  as  the  hills. 

If  you  have  not  to  live  with  those  who  thus  differ 
from  you  there  is  no  great  harm  done,  but  if  you 
have  to  accept  them  as  part  of  your  life,  it 
is    a    different    matter.      It    is    then    essential 


126  THE  JEWS 

to  the  order  of  the  State  that  this  illusion  of 
directly  antagonistic  motive  should  be  watched 
and  restrained. 

But  all  this  concerns  rather  our  duty  in  the  matter 
than  the  mere  cause  of  friction. 

The  first  cause  of  friction  is  that  contrast  which 
is  the  same  whether  we  describe  it  from  the  alien's 
point  of  view,  as  has  just  been  done,  or  from  our 
own. 

The  causes  of  friction  which  lie  within  the  pro- 
vince of  the  will,  and  which  are,  therefore,  directly 
a  matter  for  reform,  are  of  another  kind.  The  first 
of  them  undoubtedly  is  our  disingenuousness  in  our 
dealings  with  the  Jew. 

This  disingenuousness  extends  from  our  daily  habit 
to  our  treatment  of  history.  It  is  more  deep-rooted 
than  most  people  are  aware  of,  more  widespread 
than  those  who  are  aware  of  it  like  to  admit.  It 
affects  our  relations  with  the  Jews  just  as  much 
when  we  are  attempting  to  defend  their  position 
in  the  State  as  when  we  attack  them.  Indeed,  I 
think  it  affects  our  relations  more  when  we  are 
trying  to  defend  them  than  when  we  attack  them. 
The  only  two  kinds  of  men  who  show  perfect 
candour  in  their  dealings  with  the  Jews  are  the 
completely  ignorant  dupe  who  can  hardly  tell  a 
Jew  when  he  sees  one  and  who  accepts  as  a  reality 
the  old  fiction  of  there  being  no  difference  except  a 
difference  of  religion  (which  he  has  been  taught  to 
think  unimportant)  and  the  person  called  an  "  Anti- 
Semite." 

Both  these  types  certainly  say  what  they  think. 
That  is  why  in  their  heart  of  hearts  the  Jews  are 
grateful  to  both,  although  both  are  intellectually 
contemptible.     The  Jew  feels,  I  think,  when  he 


CAUSE  OF  FRICTION  UPON  OUR  SIDE    127 

meets  either  of  these  types,  "  At  any  rate  I  know 
where  I  am."  But  the  great  bulk  of  men,  especially 
among  the  more  cultivated,  are  grossly  disingenuous 
in  all  their  dealings  with  the  Jews.  It  is  the  great 
fault  of  our  side  which  corresponds  to  the  fault  of 
secrecy  upon  theirs.  And  when  you  have  allowed 
for  routine,  for  the  necessities  of  social  intercourse, 
for  convention  and  the  rest,  it  remains  a  deliberately 
conceived  moral  evil. 

A  man  and  his  friend  meet  in  the  street  a 
Jew  whom  they  know;  they  exchange  ordinary 
civilities  with  him;  they  pass  on.  The  moment 
his  back  is  turned  each  comments  to  his  companion 
upon  the  Jewish  character  of  the  man  they  have 
just  left,  and  almost  invariably  to  his  disadvantage. 

Now  to  blame  this  way  of  going  on  does  not  imply 
that  when  you  meet  your  Jewish  acquaintance  you 
are  to  offend  him  by  saying  to  his  face  the  kind  of 
things  you  say  behind  his  back ;  that  would  be  a 
monstrous  piece  of  cynicism  and,  in  practice,  insane. 
We  do  not  act  thus  in  any  relation  of  life.  But  it 
does  mean  that  in  the  attitude,  the  gesture,  the 
tone  of  the  voice,  we  play  a  deliberately  false  part 
in  our  relations  with  Jews,  which  we  do  not  play 
in  our  relations  with  any  other  people.  A  peculiar 
pretence,  a  pretence  only  practised  with  Jews,  is 
elaborately  maintained.  There  is  no  allusion  to 
or  admission  of  our  real  attitude,  our  sense  of  con- 
trast. We  therefore  suffer  an  unnatural  strain; 
and  we  relieve  of  the  strain  immediately  after- 
wards by  an  exaggeration  of  the  contrast  w^e  have 
pretended  to  ignore.  It  is  blameworthy  in  a  special 
degree  because  it  is  peculiar  to  that  one  case.  If 
we  admitted  the  Jew  as  a  Jew,  talked  to  him  of 
the  things  that  were  uppermost  in  his  mind  and 


128  THE  JEWS 

in  ours,  and  treated  Mm  as  we  treat  any  other 
foreigner  in  our  midst,  there  would  have  been  no 
harm  done.  As  it  is  the  lie  has  done  a  double 
harm — ^to  him  and  to  us.  To  us  by  an  exasperation 
which  is  entirely  our  own  fault,  to  him  by  deceiving 
him  as  to  his  true  position. 

The  Jews  who  mix  with  the  wealthiest  classes 
to-day,  especially  in  London,  have  no  true  idea  of 
their  real  position  in  the  eyes  of  their  guests ;  and 
the  fault  is  with  their  guests. 

I  have  cited  an  obvious  daily  example,  but  it  is 
the  least  important,  for  it  is  passing  and  shallow. 
This  disingenuousness  spreads  to  relations  more 
permanent.  A  man  goes  into  business  with  a  Jew, 
accepts  him  as  a  partner,  works  with  him  constantly 
and  yet  nourishes  in  his  heart  a  disloyalty  to  that 
relationship.  It  is  a  phenomenon  of  constant 
recurrence  and  it  poisons  the  relations  between  the 
two  races.  If  a  man  is  prepared  to  enter  into  one 
of  these  permanent  relations  with  another  man  who 
difiers  fundamentally  from  himself  in  tradition  and 
human  character,  he  must  face  the  consequences. 
One  of  those  consequences,  if  he  is  to  remain  an 
honest  man,  is  the  acceptation  of  the  position  with 
all  that  it  implies.  He  cannot  have  the  advantage 
— ^as  he  hopes  to  have  it — of  the  Jewish  sobriety,  the 
Jewish  tenacity,  the  Jewish  lucidity  of  thought,  the 
Jewish  international  relationships,  the  Jewish 
opportunity  of  advancement  through  the  aid  of  his 
fellows,  and  at  the  same  time  secretly  indulge  in  a 
contempt  and  dislike  for  his  companion,  and  relieve 
that  suppressed  feeling  in  his  absence.  Yet  that  is 
what  men  are  doing  daily  throughout  the  business 
world. 

Listen  to  the  conversation  of  such  a  man  as, 


CAUSE  OF  FEICTION  UPON  OUR  SIDE    129 

having  tliiis  engaged  in  intimate  commercial 
relationship  with  the  Jew,  falls  upon  misfortune. 
He  spends  the  rest  of  his  life  denouncing  the  Jews 
as  a  race  and  his  own  companion  in  misfortune  in 
particular.  He  has  no  right  to  do  it.  It  is  undig- 
nified ;  it  is  puerile,  but,  worst  of  all,  it  is  unjust. 
He  presumably  knew^  what  he  was  doing  when  he 
entered  into  what  could  not  but  be  a  difficult 
relationship.  The  consequences  of  that  relationship 
he  should  accept  whether  they  turn  out  well  for 
him  or  ill. 

We  jSind  something  perhaps  even  worse  to  note 
in  the  attitude  of  those  who  are  successful  in  their 
business  through  an  alliance  with  the  Jew.  For  in 
this  case  gratitude  should  be  added  to  justice, 
and  that  gratitude  is  very  rarely  shown.  On  the 
contrary,  the  non- Jewish  partner  is  for  ever  in 
a  mood  of  complaint  about  his  share.  He  is 
perpetually  in  a  grievance  that  he  has  been  over- 
reached, or  that  he  has  been  bullied,  or  that  he  has 
been  robbed,  save  in  those  very  rare  cases  where 
the  success  is  so  overwhelming,  the  fortunes  so 
rapid,  that  there  is  no  room  for  a  grudge.  In 
almost  every  other  case  that  I  have  come  across 
there  is  that  element  of  recrimination — ^behind  the 
Jew's  back — even  under  conditions  of  success. 

I  know  very  well  what  can  be  said  upon  the  other 
side.  It  can  be  said  that  what  I  have  called  upon 
a  former  page  the  "  ruthlessness  "  of  the  Jew  in 
commercial  relations,  as  well  as  his  tenacity  and 
all  the  rest,  make  the  contest  unequal ;  that  in  a 
partnership  between  Jew  and  non- Jew  the  non- Jew 
is,  as  a  fact,  often  overreached  and  is,  as  a  fact, 
often  left  (as  the  pretty  vocabulary  of  modern 
commerce  has  it)  "  in  the  cart."     But  pray  why  did 


130  THE  JEWS 

the  non- Jew  enter  into  the  alliance  at  all  ?  Was 
it  not  precisely  in  order  that  he  should  benefit,  if 
he  could,  by  those  very  qualities  which  he  later 
denounces  ?  He  expected  that  those  qualities 
which  make  for  the  success  of  the  Jew  in  commerce 
would  also  benefit  himself.  He  knew  that  there 
must  always  be  a  certain  amount  of  competition, 
even  within  such  an  alliance.  He  backed  himself 
to  watch  his  own  interests  under  conditions  which 
he  knew  perfectly  well  when  he  entered  into  them. 
He  has  not  a  leg  to  stand  upon  in  quarrelling  with 
the  results  of  the  relationship,  for  in  so  doing  he 
is  merely  quarrelling  with  his  own  judgment  and, 
for  the  matter  of  that,  his  own  plot. 

If  a  man  cannot  tolerate  the  contrast  between  the 
Jewish  race  and  our  own,  or  if  he  regards  that  race 
as  possessing  energies  which  will  invariably  defeat 
him  in  the  competition  of  commerce,  then  let  him 
keep  away  from  a  Jewish  alliance  altogether.  It 
is  the  simplest  plan.  But  to  immix  himself  with 
the  Jewish  commercial  activity  and  then  to  grumble 
at  the  results  is  despicable. 

All  this  is  worse,  of  course,  when  one  is  dealing 
with  relations  even  closer  than  those  of  commerce. 
Those  relations  are  numerous  in  the  modern  world, 
and  disingenuousness  in  them  takes  the  worst 
possible  form.  Men,  especially  of  the  wealthier 
classes  of  the  gentry,  will  make  the  closest  friends  of 
Jews  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  personal  advant- 
age. They  think  the  friendship  will  help  them  to 
great  positions  in  the  State,  or  to  the  advancement 
of  private  fortune,  or  to  fame.  In  that  calcu- 
lation they  are  wise.  For  the  Jew  has  to-day 
exceptional  power  in  all  these  things.  They  there- 
fore have  the  Jew  continually  at  their  tables,  they 


CAUSE  OF  FRICTION  UPON  OUR  SIDE    131 

stay  continually  under  the  Jew's  roof.  In  all  the 
relations  of  life  they  are  as  intimate  as  friends  can 
be.  Yet  they  relieve  the  strain  which  such  an 
unnatural  situation  imposes  by  a  standing  sneer  at 
their  Jewish  friends  in  their  absence.  One  may  say 
of  such  men  (and  they  are  to-day  an  increasing 
majority  among  our  rich)  that  the  falsity  of  their 
situation  has  got  on  their  nerves.  It  has  become  a 
sort  of  disease  with  them ;  and  I  am  very  certain 
that  when  the  opportunity  comes,  when  the  public 
reaction  against  Jewish  power  rises,  clamorous, 
insistent  and  open,  they  will  be  among  the  first  to 
take  their  revenge.     It  is  abominable,  but  it  is  true. 

And  this  truth  applies  not  only  to  friendships, 
it  even  applies  to  marriages.  Marriage  between 
Christian  and  Jew  is,  in  that  rank,  an  affair  of 
interest,  and  the  bitterness  the  relation  breeds  is 
excessive. 

This  disingenuousness,  then — lack  of  candour  on 
the  part  of  our  race  in  its  dealings  with  the  Jew — 
a  vice  particularly  rife  among  the  wealthy  and 
middle  classes  (far  less  common  among  the  poor), 
extends,  as  I  have  said,  to  history.  We  dare  not, 
or  will  not  teach  in  our  history  books  the  plain  facts 
of  the  relations  between  our  own  race  and  the  Jews. 
We  throw  the  story  of  these  relations,  which  are 
among  the  half-dozen  leading  factors  of  history, 
right  into  the  background  even  when  we  do  mention 
it.  In  what  they  are  taught  of  history  the  school- 
boy and  the  undergraduate  come  across  no  more 
than  a  line  or  two  upon  those  relations.  The 
teacher  cannot  be  quite  silent  upon  the  expulsion 
of  the  Jews  under  Edward  I  or  upon  their  return 
under  Cromwell.  A  man  cannot  read  the  history 
of  the  Roman  Empire  without  hearing  of  the  Jewish 


132  THE  JEWS 

war.  A  man  cannot  read  the  Constitutional 
History  of  England  without  hearing  of  the  special 
economic  position  of  Jews  under  the  Mediaeval 
Crown.  But  the  vastness  of  the  subject,  its 
permanent  and  insistent  character  throughout  two 
thousand  years;  its  great  episodes;  its  general 
effect — ^all  that  is  deliberately  suppressed. 

How  many  people,  for  instance,  of  those  who 
profess  a  good  knowledge  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
even  in  its  details,  are  aware,  let  alone  have 
written  upon  the  tremendous  massacres  and  counter- 
massacres  of  Jews  and  Europeans,  the  mass  of 
edicts  alternately  protecting  and  persecuting  Jews ; 
the  economic  position  of  the  Jew,  especially  in  the 
later  empire ;    the  character  of  the  dispersion  ? 

There  took  place  in  Cyprus  and  in  the  Libyan 
cities  under  Hadrian  a  Jewish  movement  against 
the  surrounding  non- Jewish  society  far  exceeding 
in  violence  the  late  wreckage  of  Russia,  which 
to-day  fills  all  our  thoughts.  The  massacres  were 
wholesale  and  so  were  the  reprisals.  The  Jews 
killed  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  the  people  of  Cyprus 
alone,  and  the  Roman  authorities  answered  with  a 
repression  which  was  a  pitiless  war. 

One  might  pile  up  instances  indefinitely.  The 
point  is,  that  the  average  educated  man  has  never 
been  allowed  to  hear  of  them.  What  a  factor  the 
Jew  was  in  that  Roman  State  from  which  we  all 
spring,  how  he  survived  its  violent  antagonism  to 
him  and  his  antagonism  to  it ;  the  special  privilege 
whereby  he  was  excepted  from  a  worship  of  its 
gods ;  his  handling  of  its  finances — all  the  intimate 
parallel  which  it  affords  to  later  times  is  left  in 
silence.  The  average  educated  man  who  has  been 
taught,  even  in  some  fullness,  his  Roman  History, 


CAUSE  OF  FRICTION  UPON  OUR  SIDE    133 

leaves  tliat  study  with  the  impression  that  the  Jews 
(if  he  had  noticed  them  at  all)  are  but  an  insig- 
nificant detail  in  the  story. 

So  it  is  with  history  more  recent  and  even  con- 
temporaneous. In  the  history  of  the  nineteenth 
century  it  is  outrageous.  The  special  character  of 
the  Jew,  his  actions  through  the  Secret  Societies 
and  in  the  various  revolutions  of  foreign  States,  his 
rapid  acquisition  of  power  through  finance,  political 
and  social,  especially  in  this  country — all  that  is  left 
out.  It  is  an  exact  parallel  to  the  disingenuousness 
which  we  note  in  social  relations.  The  same  man 
who  shall  have  written  a  monograph  upon  some  point 
of  nineteenth  century  history  and  left  his  readers 
in  ignorance  of  the  Jewish  elements  in  the  story 
will  regale  you  in  private  with  a  dozen  anecdotes : 
such-and-such  a  man  was  a  Jew;  such-and-such  a 
man  was  half  a  Jew ;  another  was  controlled  in  his 
policy  by  a  Jewish  mistress;  the  go-between  in 
such-and-such  a  negotiation  was  a  Jew ;  the  Jewish 
blood  in  such-and-such  a  family  came  in  thus  and 
thus — And  so  forth :  but  not  a  word  of  it  on  the 
printed  page ! 

This  deliberate  falsehood  equally  applies  to 
contemporary  record.  The  newspaper  reader  is 
deceived — so  far  as  it  is  still  possible  to  deceive  him 
— with  the  most  shameless  lies.  "  Abraham 
Cohen,  a  Pole";  "  M.  Mosevitch,  a  distinguished 
Roumanian"  ;  "  Mr.  Schiif,  and  other  representa- 
tive Americans"  ;  "  M.  Bergson  with  his  typically 
French  lucidity"  ;  "  Maximilian  Harden,  always 
courageous  in  his  criticism  of  his  owfi  people"  (his 
own  being  the  German)  .  .  .  and  the  rest  of  the 
rubbish.  It  is  weakening,  I  admit,  but  it  has  not 
yet  ceased. 


lU  THE  JEWS 

Now  this  form  of  falsehood  corrodes,  of  course, 
the  souls  of  those  who  mdulge  in  it.  But  that  does 
not  concern  the  matter  of  this  book.  Where  it 
comes  in  as  a  cause  of  friction  between  the  two  races, 
and  a  removable  cause  of  friction,  is  in  the  effect 
it  has  upon  the  Jewish  conception  of  their  position 
in  our  society.  It  falsifies  that  conception  alto- 
gether. It  produces  in  the  Jew  a  false  sense  of 
security  and  a  completely  distorted  phantasm  of  the 
way  in  which  he  is  really  received  in  our  society. 
The  more  this  disingenuousness  is  practised  the 
more  the  surprise  which  follows  upon  its  discovery 
and  the  more  legitimate  the  bitterness  and  hatred 
which  that  surprise  occasions  in  those  of  whom  we 
are  the  hosts.  It  is  not  only  true  of  this  country ; 
it  is  true  of  every  other  country  in  which  the  Jew 
has  been  harboured  and  for  a  time  protected. 
Invariably  he  has  complained  that  his  awakening 
was  rude,  that  he  was  bewildered  by  what  seemed  to 
him  a  novel  and  inexplicable  feelmg  against  him; 
that  he  had  thought  he  was  among  friends  and 
found  himself  suddenly  among  treacherous  enemies. 
All  this  would  have  been  saved  to  others  in  the  past, 
and  will  be  saved  to  ourselves  in  the  near  future,  if 
this  pestilent  habit  of  falsehood  were  eliminated. 

Disingenuousness  is,  on  our  side,  the  first  main 
cause  of  the  friction  between  the  two  races. 

The  second  main  cause  of  friction  upon  our  side 
is  the  unintelligence  of  our  dealing  with  the  Jews. 
That  unintelligence  is  allied,  of  course,  to  the  dis- 
ingenuousness of  which  I  have  spoken ;  but  it  is  a 
separate  thing  none  the  less,  and  we  can  learn  from 
the  Jews  its  opposite,  for  their  dealings  with  us  are 
always  intelligent.  They  know  what  they  are 
driving  at  in  those  relations,  though  they  often 


CAUSE  OF  FRICTION  UPON  OUR  SIDE    135 

misunderstand  the  material  with  which  they  deal. 
But  we,  over  and  over  again,  would  seem  not  even 
to  know  what  we  are  driving  at. 

What  could  be  more  unintelligent,  for  instance, 
than  the  special  forms  of  courtesy  with  which  the 
Jew  is  treated  ?  I  am  not  talking  of  the  elaborate, 
false  friendship  which  I  have  just  dealt  with  under 
the  head  of  disingenuousness,  but  of  the  genuine 
attempts  at  courtesy  towards  this  alien  people — 
the  courtesy  expressed  by  those  who  have  no 
intimate  relations  with  them,  and  do  not  desire  to 
have  intimate  relations  with  them.  It  is  almost 
invariably,  in  those  who  commonly  avoid  the  Jews, 
a  courtesy  which  expresses  patronage  on  the  surface 
of  it.  It  may  be  compared  with  the  courtesy  that 
rich  men  show  to  poor  men — as  offensive  a  thing  as 
there  is  in  the  world. 

And  how  unintelligent  is  our  dealing  with  any 
particular  Jewish  problem;  for  instance,  the 
problem  of  Jewish  immigration !  We  mask  it 
under  false  names,  calling  it  "  the  alien  question," 
"  Russian  immigration."  "  the  influx  of  undesir- 
ables from  Eastern  and  Central  Europe,"  and  any 
number  of  other  timorous  equivalents.  The  process 
is  one  of  cowardly  falsehood,  but  the  falsehood  is 
not  more  remarkable  than  the  stupidity,  for  no 
one  is  taken  in  and  least  of  all  the  Jews  them- 
selves. 

This  unintelligence  extends  to  many  another 
field.  How  unintelligent  are  the  efi'orts  of  the 
writers  who  would,  as  it  were,  make  amends  to  the 
Jews  for  former  persecution  by  putting  imaginary 
Jew  heroes  into  their  books.  In  this  particular  we 
offend  less  than  did  our  fathers  of  the  Victorian 
period.     Dickens'  offence  was  grave.     He  disliked 


136  THE  JEWS 

Jews  instinctively;  when  he  wrote  of  a  Jew 
according  to  his  inclination  he  made  him  out  a 
criminal.  Hearing  that  he  must  make  amends 
for  this  action,  he  introduced  a  Jew  who  is  like 
nothing  on  earth — a  sort  of  compound  of  an  Arab 
Sheik  and  a  Family  Bible  picture  from  the  Old 
Testament,  and  the  whole  embroidered  on  an 
utterly  non- Jewish — a  purely   English   character. 

How  unintelligent  are  the  various  defences  of  the 
Jew  by  the  non- Jew,  even  with  the  best  intentions ! 
You  will  hear  people  tell  you  solemnly,  as  a  sort  of 
revelation,  that  there  are  kindly,  witty  Jews,  Jews 
who  are  good  prize-fighters  or  good  fencers.  I  well 
remember  one  old  gentleman  who  tried  hard  to 
convince  me  (as  though  I  needed  convincing)  that 
there  were  Jews  who  had  taste.  He  said  to  me,  "  I 
do  not  myself  go  into  Jewish  houses,  but  my  son 
does,  and  he  assures  me  that  much  of  the  decoration 
is  in  good  taste."  How  unintelligent  is  the  idea 
that  because  a  man's  motives  are  not  open  and 
because  he  has  not  the  same  reasons  for  serving  the 
State  that  you  have,  therefore  he  is  to  be  perpetually 
under  suspicion !  How  still  more  unintelligent  is 
the  conception  that,  although  he  is  alien,  yet  you 
cannot  use  him  in  certain  special  services  for  the 
State. 

This  unintelligence  is  specially  apparent  in  the 
treatment  of  the  Jew  in  his  international  relations. 
The  Jew  is  a  nomad,  the  non- Jew  a  man  with  a 
fixed  habitation.  The  Englishman,  the  Frenchman 
and  the  rest  are  perpetually  approaching  the  Jew 
as  though  he  also  had  a  fixed  habitation.  We  seem 
never  to  be  able  to  get  over  the  shock  of  surprise 
when  we  learn  that  a  particular  Jew  abroad  is  the 
cousin,  or  nephew,  or  brother  of  another  Jew  with  a 


CAUSE  OF  FRICTION  UPON  OUE  SIDE    137 

different  name  in  England,  or  with  another  Jew  with 
yet  another  name  in  Pinsk  or  San  Francisco.  Yet, 
surely,  this  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  Jewish 
position.  We  ought  to  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
Jew  is  thus  nomadic,  international,  spread  all  over 
the  world,  migratory,  as  we  take  the  same  thing  for 
granted  in  birds  of  passage.  To  adopt  the  attitude 
which  we  almost  invariably  do  and  to  feel  a  shock 
of  surprise  when  we  discover  what  must  in  the 
nature  of  things  be  the  most  regular  feature  in  the 
civic  situation  of  the  Jew,  is  to  fall  into  that  most 
stupid  of  all  stupid  errors,  the  reading  of  oneself 
into  others. 

I  remember  the  horror  and  scandal  with  which 
men  whispered  their  discovery  that  a  man  with  a 
German  name,  who  had  got  into  trouble  a  few  years 
ago,  was  the  first  cousin  of  a  Cabinet  Minister.  Why 
not  ?  They  seemed  to  be  struck  all  of  a  heap  by 
the  dreadful  revelation  that  the  names  borne  by 
Jews  were  not  always  their  original  names,  that 
rich  and  important  men  often  have  poor  rela- 
tions, and  that  poor  relations  often  get  embar- 
rassed. 

In  terms  of  their  own  society  the  thing  would 
have  been  simple  enough.  They  would  have  felt 
no  surprise  to  hear  that  some  man  of  our  own  race, 
who  had  made  a  rapid  fortune  and  purchased  a 
political  position,  suffered  from  a  disreputable 
relative,  also  of  our  own  race.  But  because  in  the 
case  of  the  Jew  there  were  the  two  unusual  elements 
of  a  foreign  name  and  distant  origin,  they  were 
bewildered.  They  even  thought  it  in  some  way 
specially  scandalous.  They  had  not  appreciated  the 
material  with  which  they  were  dealing,  and  that  is 
the  mark  of  unintelligence.     But  the  cream  of  unin- 


138  THE  JEWS 

telligence,  the  form  in  which  unintelligent  treatment 
of  him  most  exasperates  the  Jew,  is  undoubtedly 
that  typical,  that  ceaseless  case  of  the  man  who  is 
perpetually  crying  out  against  Israel,  and  purpos- 
ing nothing — the  man  who  nourishes  a  sterile 
grievance ;  who  has  not  even  the  clarity  or  vigour  to 
attempt  suppression;  who  would  be  horrified  at 
persecution,  almost  equally  horrified  at  any  breach 
of  convention,  and  yet  continues  to  cry  out  against 
a  state  of  affairs  which  he  does  nothing  to  put  right 
and  for  which  he  has  not  even  a  theoretic  solution. 
The  last  of  the  main  causes  of  friction  between 
the  Jews  and  ourselves  is  lack  of  charity,  and  that 
in  the  simplest  form  of  refusing  to  go  half  way  to 
meet  the  Jew,  and  of  refusing  to  put  ourselves  in 
the  shoes  of  the  Jew  so  as  to  understand  his  position 
in  our  society  and  his  attitude  towards  it.  It  is  a 
universal  fault  just  as  common  in  those  who  daily 
associate  with,  live  off,  and  fawn  upon  Jews 
as  in  those  who  keep  aloof  from  them.  It  never 
seems  to  occur  to  anyone  on  our  side  who  has  to 
deal  with  the  Jewish  problem,  to  make  the  imagin- 
ative effort  required.  And  yet  we  have  the  parallel 
ready  to  our  hands.  The  Jew  feels  among  us,  only 
with  far  greater  intensity,  what  we  feel  when  we  are 
resident  in  a  foreign  country — a  sense  of  exile,  a 
sense  of  irritation  against  alien  things,  merely 
because  they  are  alien ;  a  great  desire  for  com- 
panionship and  for  understanding,  yet  a  great 
indifference  to  the  fate  of  those  among  whom  he 
finds  himself;  an  added  attachment,  not,  indeed, 
to  his  territorial  home,  for  he  has  none,  but  to  his 
nation.  If  we  could  perpetually  bear  in  mind 
that  parallel,  the  friction  on  our  side  would  be 
greatly  modified. 


CAUSE  OF  FRICTION  UPON  OUR  SIDE    139 

There  are  many  Jewish  societies  which  ask 
nothing  better  than  to  have  occasional  addresses 
from  non-Jews.  Those  addresses  arc  given,  those 
Societies  are  visited,  but  not  nearly  as  much  as  they 
should  be. 

There  is  a  great  Jewish  literature — ^I  mean  a  great 
mass  of  books  dealing  specially  with  the  Jew's 
position  from  the  Jew's  own  point  of  view.  It  is 
not  read  or  known.  I  may  be  told  that  the  fault 
of  all  this  is  largely  that  of  the  Jews  themselves  on 
account  of  their  use  of  secrecy.  I  do  not  think  the 
objection  applies.  With  all  his  use  of  secrecy  the 
Jew  is  there  present  among  us  for  us  to  approach, 
if  we  will,  and  to  understand  as  best  we  can.  And  I 
say  that  the  approach  is  not  made. 

It  is  an  effort,  of  course.  No  one  knows  it  better 
than  I;  for  on  more  than  one  occasion  when  I 
have  addressed  a  Jewish  audience  I  have  found 
myself  the  ob j  ect  of  very  severe  language.  But  it  is 
an  effort  which  every  one  ought  to  make  who  admits 
that  there  is  a  Jewish  problem  at  all,  and  it  is  an 
effort  very  rarely  made.  It  is  not  only  an  effort 
because  it  involves  the  crossing  of  a  gulf,  it  is  also 
an  effort  because  we  find  this  alien  thing  in  many 
ways  repugnant  to  us.  Yet  people  make  that 
effort  for  the  purposes  of  the  State  continually 
where  other  races  are  concerned.  It  is  far  more 
important  that  they  should  make  it  where  the  Jews 
are  concerned.  For  those  other  alien  races, 
administrated  for  the  moment  by  officials  of  our 
own  race,  will  not  permanently  be  so  administered. 
The  relations  between  them  and  us  are  for  a  brief 
time,  and  they  are  relations  that  constantly  change. 
The  Jew  is  with  us  always ;  and  the  type  of  contact 
between  his  race  and  ours  will  remain  much  the 


140  THE  JEWS 

same  throiigli  an  indefinitely  long  future  as  they 
have  through  so  very  long  a  past. 


Here,  then,  is  the  summary,  as  I  see  it,  of  the 
causes  of  friction  between  the  two  races. 

First,  a  general  cause,  which  lies  in  the  con- 
trasting nature  of  the  two  and  upon  the  irritant 
effect  of  that  contrast.  This  cause  is  not  to  be 
eliminated,  though  its  effects  may  be  modified. 
It  is  a  profound  contrast  and  a  sharp  irritant  con- 
stant in  its  activity.  The  essential  is  to  recognize 
its  real  nature,  not  to  give  to  it  general  terms  of 
faults  and  vices,  but  to  appreciate  the  difference  of 
quality  involved :  above  all,  not  to  tell  lies  about  it 
and  pretend  it  is  not  present. 

Secondly,  as  to  special  causes  of  friction — ^I 
mean  causes  which  on  their  side,  as  on  ours,  can  be, 
if  not  eliminated,  at  any  rate  modified — ^I  suggest 
that  the  most  prominent  are:  1.  The  sense  of 
superiority  which,  though  it  cannot  be  destroyed, 
can  at  least  be  checked  in  expression  and  which, 
by  a  pretty  irony,  is  equally  strong  upon  both  sides. 

2.  The  use  of  secrecy  by  the  Jews  themselves; 
partly  as  a  weapon  of  defence,  partly  as  a  method  of 
action.,  always  to  be  deplored,  and  of  a  nature 
particularly   exasperating  to    our    temperament. 

3.  Upon  our  side,  a  persistent  disingenuous- 
ness  in  our  treatment  of  this  minority.  Unintelli- 
gence  in  their  treatment:  the  whole  made 
worse  by  an  indifference  or  lack  of  charity,  a 
refusal  to  make  the  effort  necessary  for  meeting  and 
understanding  as  well  as  we  can  the  race  which 
must  always  be  with  us  and  which  is  yet  so  different 
from  our  own. 


CAUSE  OF  FRICTION  UPON  OUR  SIDE    141 

Now  these  causes  of  friction  permanently  present 
tend  to  produce  what  I  have  called  the  tragic 
cycle:  welcome  of  a  Jewish  colony,  then  ill- ease, 
followed  by  acute  ill- ease,  followed  by  persecution, 
exile  and  even  massacre.  This  followed,  naturally, 
by  a  reaction  and  the  taking  up  of  the  process  all 
over  again. 

In  our  own  time  we  have  seen,  quite  lately,  the 
succession  of  the  second  to  the  first  of  these  stages ; 
we  have  passed  from  welcome  to  ill-  ease.  That  pas- 
sage threatens  a  further  passage  from  the  second  to 
the  third ;  from  the  third  to  the  terrible  conclusion. 

We  feel  quite  secure  to-day  from  the  last 
extreme  of  this  cycle.  We  are  certain  it  will  never 
come  to  persecution :  that  is  still  inconceivable. 
But  it  is  not  inconceivable  everywhere:  and  no 
society  is  free  from  change.  Some  now  alive  may 
live  to  see  riots  even  in  this  quiet  polity  and  worse 
in  newer  or  less  settled  states. 

Such  a  catastrophe  is  to  be  avoided  by  every 
effort  in  our  power  and  a  solution  to  the  problem 
presented  must  imperatively  be  sought.  But  in 
passing  we  should  note,  for  the  consideration  of 
those  who  may  doubt  the  acuteness  of  the  problem 
and  the  immediate  practical  necessity  for  a  solution, 
the  presence  of  a  phenomenon  which  amply  proves 
that  it  is  acute  and  that  the  solution  is  necessary. 
That  phenomenon  is  the  presence  to-day  of  a  new 
type,  the  Anti-Semite,  the  man  to  whom  all  the 
Jews  are  abhorrent. 

It  is  a  phenomenon  which  has  increased  pro- 
digiously ;  its  rate  of  increase  is  accelerating,  and  as 
a  warning  of  the  peril,  as  a  proof  of  its  magnitude, 
I  propose  to  examine  that  phenomenon  closely  in 
my  next  chapter. 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  ANTI-SEMITE 

To  understand  any  problem  one  must  study  not 
only  its  real  factors  as  they  appear  to  a  reasonable 
man  who  sees  tbe  whole  affair  steadily ;  one  must 
also  understand  the  insanities  and  distortions  the 
problem  has  provoked,  for  they  singularly  illus- 
trate its  character  and  force. 

It  is  not  enough  to  consider  only  the  actual  in 
any  difficulty  to  be  solved,  it  is  necessary  also  to 
consider  the  imaginary;  because  the  legend  or 
illusion  is  a  direct  product  of  the  truth  and  shows 
how  the  truth  has  acted  on  other  minds. 

Thus  a  caricature  brings  out  what  we  uncon- 
sciously know  to  be  present  in  any  personality, 
emphasizes  it,  and  though  false  in  its  exaggeration, 
forbids  us  to  forget  it  in  the  future.  Thus  any 
extreme,  no  matter  how  false  its  lack  of  proportion, 
is  of  the  highest  value  to  judgment. 

In  a  practical  problem  of  politics  there  is  another 
most  weighty  reason  for  examining  extreme  and 
distorted  opinion :  which  is,  that  in  politics  we  deal 
not  only  with  real  things  but  with  the  liking  or 
disliking  of  these  things  by  living  men:  their 
exaggerated  or  ill-informed  affection  or  repulsion. 
All  statesmanship  lies  in  the  apprehension  of  enthu- 
siasm and  indifference. 

145  L 


146  THE  JEWS 

Now  there  are  in  this  great  political  problem 
presented  by  the  Jewish  race  in  our  midst  two 
extremes.  One  we  have  already  studied:  it  is  the 
extreme  folly  of  falsehood,  of  pretending  that  the 
problem  is  not  there. 

That  extreme  was  an  almost  universal  folly  in 
the  immediate  past,  especially  in  this  country.  It 
is  now  abandoned  by  all  of  our  generation  save  a 
few  people  of  an  official  sort,  and  these  will  not 
long  maintain  an  attitude  outworn  and  already 
ridiculous. 

But  the  other  extreme  remains  to  be  studied.  It 
is,  in  our  society,  quite  a  recent  phenomenon,  though 
it  has  gained  very  great  strength  in  recent  years 
and  is  increasing  alarmingly.  It  is  the  extreme  of 
hatred.  It  is  the  extreme  manifested  by  those  who 
have  but  one  motive  in  their  action  towards  the 
Jewish  race,  and  that  motive  a  mere  desire  for  its 
elimination.  It  implies  that  there  is  no  peace 
possible  between  the  two  races ;  no  reasoned  political 
solution.  It  relies  upon  nothing  but  antagonism. 
It  is  already  very  strong,  and  its  adherents  believe 
themselves  to  be  on  the  eve  of  a  sort  of  blundering 
triumph. 

Every  one  who  desires  to  deal  with  this  grave 
political  matter  practically,  that  is,  to  establish  a 
permanent  policy,  will  be  much  more  concerned 
with  the  extreme  here  examined  than  with  the 
other  extreme,  which  ignores  the  problem  altogether. 
For  this  new  extreme  of  active  hatred  is  flourishing ; 
that  other,  older  extreme  no  longer  functions. 

The  near  future  will  have  to  deal,  in  practical 
politics,  not  only  with  the  problem  presented  by 
the  Jews  as  an  alien  power  within  the  State,  but 
(what  will  probably  prove  a  more  difficult  matter) 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE  147 

with  the  hater  of  the  Jew,  who  is  claiming,  and 
rapidly  achieving,  power  on  his  side.  The  type  is 
as  old  as  the  problem ;  it  is  two  thousand  years  old. 
But  it  waxes  and  wanes.  Its  modern  name  of 
"  Anti-Semite"  is  as  ridiculous  in  derivation  as  it  is 
ludicrous  in  form.  It  is  partly  of  German  academic 
origin  and  partly  a  newspaper  name,  vulgar  as  one 
would  expect  it  to  be  from  such  an  origin,  and  also 
as  falsely  pedantic  as  one  would  expect,  but  the 
exasperated  mood  of  which  it  is  a  label  is  very 
real. 

I  say  the  word  "Anti-Semite"  is  vulgar  and 
pedantic :  that  I  think  will  be  universally  admitted. 
It  is  also  nonsensical.  The  antagonism  to  the  Jews 
has  nothing  to  do  with  any  supposed  "  Semitic" 
race — ^whicli  probably  does  not  exist  any  more  than 
do  many  other  modern  hypothetical  abstractions, 
and  which,  anyhow,  does  not  come  into  the  matter. 
The  Anti-Semite  is  not  a  man  who  hates  the  modern 
Arabs  or  the  ancient  Carthaginians.  He  is  a  man 
who  hates  Jews. 

However,  we  must  accept  the  word  because  it  has 
become  currency,  and  go  on  to  the  more  essential 
matter  of  discovering  how  those  to  whom  it  applies 
are  moved,  what  the  result  of  their  action  would 
be  if  (or  when)  they  could  act  freely;  and,  most 
important  of  all,  of  what  they  are  a  sign. 

The  Anti-Semite  is  a  man  marked  by  two  main 
characters.  In  the  first  place  he  hates  the  Jews  in 
tJiemselves.  His  motive  is  not  a  hatred  of  their 
presence  in  our  society.  His  motive  is  not  the 
hatred  of  concealment,  falsehood,  hypocrisy,  corrup- 
tion and  all  the  other  incidental  evils  of  that  false 
position.  These  things,  indeed,  irritate  him,  but 
they  are  not  his  leadmg  motive.     His  leading  motive 


148  THE  JEWS 

is  a  hatred  of  the  Jemsh  people.  He  is  in  intense 
reaction  against  this  alien  thing  which  he  perceives 
to  have  acquired  so  much  power  in  his  society.  The 
way  in  which  it  has  exercised  this  power  especially 
exasperates  him.  But  he  will  remain  a  hater  of  the 
Jewish  nation  when  they  are  despised,  insignificant, 
and  neglected,  and  he  will  remain  a  hater  of  it  even 
if  there  be  then  attached  to  its  position  no  accidents 
of  secrecy,  falsehood  and  financial  corruption.  The 
type  increases  rapidly  when  Jews  have  power :  it 
becomes  almost  universal  when  they  begin  to  abuse 
that  power.  It  dwindles  as  that  power  declines. 
But  it  is  always  the  same  and  is  an  index  of  peril. 

The  Anti-Semite  is  a  man  who  wants  to  get  rid  of 
the  Jews.  He  is  filled  with  an  instinctive  feeling  in 
the  matter.  He  detests  the  Jew  as  a  Jew,  and  would 
detest  him  wherever  he  found  him.  The  evidences 
of  such  a  state  of  mind  are  familiar  to  us  all.  The 
Anti-Semite  admires,  for  instance,  a  work  of  art; 
on  finding  its  author  to  be  a  Jew  it  becomes  dis- 
tasteful to  him  though  the  work  remains  exactly 
what  it  was  before.  The  Anti-Semite  will  confuse 
the  action  of  any  particular  Jew  with  his  general 
odium  for  the  race.  He  will  hardly  admit  high 
talents  in  his  adversaries,  or  if  he  admits  them  he 
will  always  see  in  their  expression  something 
distorted  and  unsavoury. 

When  an  accusation  is  made  against  a  Jew  he 
cannot  adopt  the  judicial  attitude  any  more  than 
could  that  other  extremist,  the  humbug  who  denies 
the  Jewish  problem  altogether.  Just  as  that  other 
person,  now  passing  out  of  our  lives,  would  not  admit 
a  Jew  to  be  guilty  under  the  most  glaring  evidence 
and  was  particularly  unable  to  admit  guilt  in  a 
Jew  who  might  be  wealthy ;  just  as  he  proclaimed 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE  149 

the  Jews  as  a  whole  impeccable,  so  does  the  Anti- 
Semite  approach  every  Jew  with  a  presumption  of 
his  probable  guilt,  so  does  he  exaggerate  this  pre- 
judice when  he  has  to  deal  with  a  wealthy  Jew,  and 
so  does  he  consider  the  whole  Jewish  race  in  the 
lump  as  probably  guilty  of  pretty  well  any  charge 
brought  against  it. 

The  contrast  was  very  well  seen  in  the  Dreyfus 
case,  when  the  old  type  of  extremist  was  still  strong. 
He  would  not  look  at  the  evidence  against  Dreyfus, 
he  would  not,  if  he  could  help  it,  mention  his  race. 
All  he  knew  was  that  Dreyfus  was  and  must  in  the 
nature  of  things  be  innocent  and  that  all  the  diverse 
men  who  testified  against  him  were  wicked  con- 
spirators. The  new  t}'pe  of  extremist,  then  but 
rising  and  not  yet  master,  would  not  listen  to  the 
strong  evidence  in  Dreyfus'  favour,  refused  to  re- 
examine the  case  after  the  chief  witness  had  been 
found  guilty  of  forgery,  made  up  his  mind  that 
Dreyfus  was  necessarily  guilty  and  was  convinced 
that  all  his  supporters  were  dupes  or  knaves. 

The  mere  fact  that  the  Jews  exist,  let  alone  that 
they  are  powerful,  poisons  life  for  such  a  man.  He 
is  led  by  his  lop-sided  enthusiasm  into  the  most 
ridiculous  errors.  In  this  country  every  name  of 
German  origm  at  once  suggests  a  Jew  to  him.  Every 
financial  operation,  especially  if  it  be  of  doubtful 
morality,  must  certainly  have  a  Jew  behind  it; 
wherever  a  number  of  partners,  Jewish  and  non- 
Jewish,  are  engaged  in  some  bad  work  (as,  for 
instance,  in  one  of  our  innumerable  Parliamentary 
scandals),  a  Jew  must  always  for  this  sort  of  person 
be  the  prime  mover  and  the  evil  genius  of  the  whole. 

As  is  the  case  with  every  other  mania,  this  mania 
rapidly  obscures  the  general  vision  of  its  victim. 


150  THE  JEWS 

His  prejudices  soon  lose  proportion  altogether.  He 
comes  to  see  the  Jew  in  everything  and  everywhere, 
and  to  accept  confidently  propositions  which  he 
would  himself  see  to  be  contradictory,  could  he  give 
a  moment's  quiet  thought  to  the  matter. 

Thus  I  have  heard  on  all  sides  in  the  last  few 
years  these  strange  assertions  proceeding  from  the 
same  source,  yet  obviously  incompatible  one  with 
the  other :  That  modern  scepticism  was  Jewish  in 
its  origin;  that  modern  superstition,  our  modern 
necromancy  and  crystal  gazing  and  all  the  rest  of 
it,  was  Jewish  in  its  origin ;  that  the  evils  of  demo- 
cracy are  all  Jewish  in  their  origin ;  that  the  evil 
of  tyrannical  government,  in  Prussia,  for  instance, 
was  Jewish  in  its  origin ;  that  the  pagan  perversions 
of  bad  modern  art  were  Jewish  in  their  origin ;  that 
the  puerility  of  bad  church  furniture  was  due  to 
Jewish  dealers ;  that  the  Great  War  was  the  product 
of  Jewish  armament  firms ;  that  the  anti- patriotic 
appeals  which  weakened  the  allied  armies  came  from 
Jewish  sources — and  so  on.  It  is  indeed  true  that 
there  is  a  Jewish  quality  in  all  these  diverse  and 
contradictory  things  where  a  Jew  mixes  in  them; 
just  as  there  is  a  Scotch,  or  French,  or  English 
quality  when  a  Scot,  a  Frenchman,  or  an  English- 
man is  the  agent.  But  to  ascribe  the  whole  boiling 
to  the  Jew,  and  to  make  him  the  conscious  origin  of 
all,  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

The  Anti-Semite  is  a  man  so  absorbed  in  his 
subject  that  he  at  last  looses  interest  in  any  matter, 
unless  he  can  give  it  some  association  with  his 
delusion,  for  delusion  it  is. 

In  a  sense,  of  course,  this  state  of  mind  is  a  sort 
of  compliment  to  the  Jewish  nation.  If  such  a 
preoccupation  with  them  be  not  amicable  it  is  at 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE  161 

least  intense,  and  those  against  whom  it  is  directed 
may  well  regard  it  as  a  proof  of  their  importance  in 
the  world.  But  that  aspect  of  the  phenomenon  is 
not  consoling  for  the  future  of  either  of  us — the 
Jew  who  now  nervously  awaits  attack,  and  we  who 
desire  to  forestall  and  prevent  such  attack. 

The  Anti-Semite  is  very  much  more  numerous 
and  very  much  more  powerful  than  might  be  ima- 
gined from  the  reading  of  the  daily  press  ;  for  the 
press  is  still,  for  the  most  part,  under  the  convention 
of  ignoring  the  Jewish  problem  and  under  the  terror 
of  the  financial  results  which  might  follow  from  a 
discussion  of  it.  His  universal  activity  is  not  yet 
to  be  read  of  in  the  great  newspapers ;  but  in  con- 
versation and  in  the  practice  of  daily  life  we  hear 
of  it  ever}n^here. 

And  here  I  may  digress  upon  a  modern  feature 
which  applies  to  all  political  problems  and  therefore 
to  this  Jewish  problem  among  others.  The  great 
movements  of  our  time  have  never  originated  in  the 
press  of  the  great  cities.  They  rise  and  store  up 
their  energies  in  political  cliques,  in  popular  gather- 
ings, and  spoken  rumours  long  before  they  appear 
in  this  main  instrument  for  the  spreading  of  news. 
That  is  because  the  press  of  our  great  cities  is  con- 
trolled by  very  few  men.  whose  object  is  not  the 
discussion  of  public  affairs,  still  less  the  giving  of 
full  information  to  their  fellow- citizens,  but  the 
piling  up  of  private  fortune.  As  these  men  are  not, 
as  a  rule,  educated  men,  nor  particularly  concerned 
with  the  fortunes  of  the  State,  nor  capable  of  under- 
standing from  the  past  what  the  future  may  be, 
they  will  never  take  up  a  great  movement  until  it  is 
forced  upon  them.  On  the  contrary,  they  will  waste 
energy  in  getting  up  false  excitement  upon  insig- 


152  THE  JEWS 

nificant  matters  where  they  feel  safe,  and  even  in 
using  their  instruments  for  the  advertisement  of 
their  own  insignificant  lives.  In  all  this,  the 
modern  press  of  our  great  cities  differs  very 
greatly  from  the  press  of  a  lifetime  ago.  It 
was  not  always  owned  by  educated  men,  but  it 
was  conducted  by  highly  educated  men,  who  were 
given  a  free  hand.  It  therefore  concerned  itself 
with  problems  of  real  importance  and  it  debated 
upon  either  side  real  contrasts  of  opinion  upon  those 
matters.  This  modern  press  of  ours  does  none  of 
these  things ;  but  precisely  because  it  is  so  reluctant 
to  express  real  emotion  it  does,  when  the  emotion  is 
forced  upon  it,  let  it  out  in  a  flood.  Just  as  it  would 
not  tell  the  truth  when  a  thing  was  growing,  so  when 
it  reaches  an  extreme  it  will  not  exercise  restraint. 
On  the  contrary,  if  the  "  stunt"  be  an  exciting 
one,  it  will  push  it  (once  it  has  made  up  its  mind  to 
talk  of  it  at  all)  in  the  most  extreme  form  and  to  the 
last  pitch  of  violence. 

We  have  seen  that  plainly  enough  in  the  mon- 
strous expressions  of  foreign  policy  during  the  last 
ten  years,  and  we  have  seen  it  in  the  abominable 
hounding  of  individuals  to  which  that  same  press 
has  lent  itself. 

Now  in  the  matter  of  Anti-Semitic  feeling  we  shall 
have,  I  think,  exactly  the  same  phenomenon  re- 
peated. That  feeling  is  now  ubiquitous.  It  is  spread- 
ing with  an  alarming  rapidity,  and  the  increase 
of  its  intensity  is  even  more  remarkable  than  the 
increase  in  the  numbers  of  its  adherents.  Sooner 
or  later — and  fairly  soon,  I  imagine — ^the  press  will 
give  it  voice.  When  it  does,  it  will  give  it  voice,  we 
may  be  certain,  in  the  most  extreme,  the  most 
passionate,  the  most  irrational  form;   and  when 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE  153 

that  happens,  in  a  field  where  passion  is  already  so 
wild,  God  help  its  victims ! 

The  Anti-Semitic  passion,  largely  based  though 
it  is  on  imaginary  things,  has  adopted  one  method 
of  action  highly  practical.  It  is  a  method  of  action 
closely  in  touch  with  reality,  and  productive  of 
formidable  results.  I  mean  its  cominling  of  docu- 
meyits.  It  has  here  noted,  all  over  Europe  and 
America,  with  exactitude,  and  continues  to  put  upon 
record,  everything  which  can  be  said  to  the  detriment 
of  its  victims. 

It  discovered  at  its  origin,  presented  as  a  barrier 
against  it,  the  Jewish  weapon  of  secrecy.  The  folly 
of  the  Jews  in  using  such  a  weapon  was  never  better 
shown,  for  of  all  defences  it  is  the  easiest  to  break 
do\Mi.  The  Anti-Semites  countered  at  once  by 
making  every  inquiry,  by  collecting  their  informa- 
tion, by  finding  out  and  exposing  the  true  names 
hidden  under  the  mask  of  false  ones,  by  detecting 
and  registering  the  relationships  between  men  who 
pretended  ignorance  one  of  the  other  ;  it  ferreted 
all  through  the  ramifications  of  anonymous  finance 
and  invariably  caught  the  Jew  who  was  behind  the 
great  industrial  insurance  schemes,  the  Jew  who 
was  behind  such  and  such  a  metal  monopoly,  the 
Jew  who  was  behind  such  and  such  a  news  agency, 
the  Jew  who  financed  such  and  such  a  politician. 
That  formidable  library  of  exposure  spreads  daily, 
and  when  the  opportunity  for  general  publication 
is  given  there  will  be  no  answer  to  it. 

It  is  the  greatest  mistake  in  the  world  to  regard 
the  Anti-Semite  in  the  vast  numerical  strength  he 
has  now  attained  all  over  our  civilization  as  wholly 
unpractical  and  therefore  negligible,  as  a  man  who 
cannot  construct  a  formidable  plan  of  action  simply 


154  THE  JEWS 

because  he  has  lost  his  sense  of  values.  While  the 
movement  was  growing  the  method  of  meeting  it 
was  always  that  of  ridicule.  It  was  a  false  method. 
The  strength  of  Anti-Semitism  was  and  is  based  not 
only  on  intensity  of  feeling,  but  also  on  industry, 
an  industry  very  accurate  in  its  methods.  The 
Anti-Semitic  pamphlets,  newspapers  and  books, 
which  the  great  daily  press  is  so  careful  to  boycott, 
form  by  now  a  mass  of  information  upon  the  whole 
Jewish  problem  which  is  already  overwhelming  and 
still  mounting  up :  and  all  of  it  hostile  to  the  Jews. 
You  will  not  find  in  it,  of  course,  any  material  for 
the  Defendant's  Brief,  but  as  a  dossier  for  the  Prose- 
cution it  is  astonishing  in  extent  and  accuracy  and 
correlation. 

Now  it  is  to  be  remembered  in  this  connection 
that  the  human  mind  is  influenced  by  documenta- 
tion in  a  special  manner.  The  exact  citation  of 
demonstrable  things  with  chapter  and  verse  con- 
vinces as  can  no  other  method,  and  the  Anti-  Semite 
is  ready  with  such  citation  on  a  very  large  scale 
indeed,  at  the  first  moment  when  a  general  pub- 
licity, now  denied,  shall  be  granted  to  it. 


Moreover,  this  reliance  of  the  Jew  upon  the 
futility  of  the  Anti-Semitic  propaganda  omits  one 
very  important  feature.  The  Anti-Semitic  group 
is  built  up  of  men  differing  greatly  in  experience,  in 
judgment  and  policy.  And  it  is  built  up  of  strata 
differing  greatly  in  the  intensity  of  their  hatred.  It 
includes  many  a  man  with  administrative  experi- 
ence, many  a  man  of  great  business  capacity,  of 
acquired  fortune,  of  talent  in  affairs.  It  in- 
cludes men  with  a  thorough  knowledge  of  European 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE  155 

diplomacy ;  it  includes  men  (in  great  numbers)  with 
the  literary  gift  of  expression  for  persuading  their 
fellows.  Not  only  is  this  true,  but,  as  I  have  said, 
it  includes  a  large  "  right  wing  "  which,  because  they 
are  more  restrained  in  expression  than  the  rest,  will 
exercise  a  greater  weight ;  men  who  are  not  at  all 
blinded  by  their  hatred,  though  hatred  has  become 
their  chief  motive;  men  w^ho  retain  full  capacity 
for  organizing  a  plan  of  action  and  for  carrying  it 
out.  It  is  true  that  there  is  a  definite  line  which 
divides  the  Anti-Semite  from  the  rest  of  those  who 
are  attempting  to  solve  the  Jewish  problem.  It  is 
the  line  dividing  those  whose  motive  is  peace  from 
those  whose  motive  is  antagonism.  It  is  the  line 
dividing  those  whose  object  is  action,  against  the 
Jew,  and  those  whose  object  is  a  settlement.  But 
on  the  Anti-Semitic  side  of  that  line — that  is,  among 
those  whose  determination  is  to  suppress  and  elimi- 
nate Jewish  influence  to  the  extreme  of  their  powder 
— 'there  are  now  very  many  more  than  the  original 
enthusiasts  who  created  the  movement. 

The  Jews  should  further  remember  that  to-day 
every  one  outside  their  own  community  is  potentially 
an  Anti-Semite.  Not  every  one,  perhaps  not  even 
yet  a  majority,  at  least  in  the  directing  and  wealthier 
classes,  is  other  than  friendly  or  indifferent  to  the 
Jews,  but  there  has  grown  up  in  every  one  not  a  Jew 
something  of  reaction  against  the  Jewish  power.  It 
requires  but  an  accident  to  change  this  from  the 
latent  and  slight  thing  it  is  in  most  men  to  an  angry 
passion.  I  have  noticed  that  among  the  most 
violent  of  Anti-Semites  are  those  who  had  passed 
some  considerable  portion  of  their  early  manhood 
in  ignorance  of  the  w^hole  problem.  These  come 
across  a  Jew  unexpectedly  in  some  relation  hostile 


156  THE  JEWS 

to  them — ^they  lose  money  through  some  Jewish 
financial  operation,  or  they  connect,  for  the  first 
time,  in  middle  age,  several  misfortunes  of  theirs 
with  a  common  element  of  Jewish  action,  or  they 
find  Jews  mixed  up  in  some  attack  on  their 
country :  thenceforward  they  become  and  remain 
unrepentant  Anti-Semites. 

The  dupe,  when  he  discovers  he  has  been  duped, 
is  dangerous,  and  there  is  even  a  considerable  cate- 
gory of  those  who  have  suffered  nothing,  even  by 
accident,  at  the  hand  of  the  Jew,  yet  who,  when  they 
discover  what  the  Jewish  power  is,  feel  they  have 
been  played  with,  and  grow  angry  at  the  trickery. 

It  has  been  and  will  be  with  Anti-Semitism  as 
with  all  movements.  When  they  begin  they  are 
ridiculed.  As  they  grow  they  come  to  be  feared 
and  boycotted ;  but  of  those  that  are  successful  it 
may  be  justly  said  that  the  moment  of  success 
begins  when  they  turn  the  corner  and  from  a  fad 
become  a  fashion. 

It  is  still  ( doubtfully)  the  fashion  to  separate  one- 
self from  the  Anti-Semitic  movement.  You  still 
hear  men,  when  they  WTite  or  speak  upon  the  Jewish 
problem,  no  matter  with  what  hostility  to  the  Jew, 
excuse  themselves  as  a  rule  at  the  beginning  of  their 
remarks  by  saying,  "  I  am  no  Anti-Semite."  For 
some  flavour  of  the  old  ridicule  still  attaches  to  the 
name.  But  fashions  change  rapidly  and  the  new 
fashion  which  comes  in  to  support  a  growing  thing, 
when  it  does  arrive,  arrives  in  a  flood. 

We  can  all  of  us  remember  the  time  when  the 
talk  of  nationalization,  the  old  State  Socialist  talk, 
was  the  talk  of  a  few  faddists  who  were  everywhere 
ridiculed  and  despised.  To-day  it  is  the  fashion; 
and  the  practice  of  State  control,  State  support, 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE  157 

the  universality  of  State  action,  is  such  that  it  is 
those  who  oppose  it  who  are  now  the  faddists  and 
the  cranks. 

We  can  all  of  us  remember  the  day  when,  in  the 
United  States,  a  prohibitionist  was  a  faddist,  and  a 
very  unpopular  faddist  at  that.  We  have  seen 
fashion  catch  him  up  with  a  vengeance. 

We  can  all  of  us  remember  the  day  when  the 
supporters  of  women's  suffrage  in  England  were  a 
very  small  group  of  faddists  indeed :  we  know  what 
has  happened  there ! 

The  forces  driving  men  towards  the  Anti-Semitic 
camp  are  far  stronger  than  the  forces  acting  upon 
these  old  hobbies  of  women's  suffrage,  of  prohibition 
and  the  rest.  They  are  personal,  intimate  forces 
arising  from  the  strongest  racial  instincts  and  the 
most  bitter  individual  memories  of  financial  loss, 
subjection,  national  dishonour. 

For  instance,  any  German  to-day  to  whom  you 
may  talk  of  his  great  disaster  will  answer  by  telling 
you  that  it  is  due  to  the  Jews :  that  the  Jews  are 
preying  upon  the  fallen  body  of  the  State ;  that  the 
Jews  are  "  rats  in  the  Reich."  For  one  man  that 
blames  the  old  military  authorities  for  the  misfor- 
tunes following  the  war,  twenty  blame  the  Jews, 
though  these  were  the  architects  of  the  former  Ger- 
man prosperity,  and  among  them  were  found  a 
larger  proportion  of  opponents  of  the  war  than  in 
any  other  section  of  the  Emperor's  subjects.  That 
is  but  one  example ;  you  will  find  it  repeated  in  one 
form  or  another  in  almost  every  other  polity  of  the 
modern  world. 

The  Anti-Semite  has  become  a  strong  political 
figure.  It  is  a  great  and  dangerous  error  at  this 
moment  to  think  his  policy  is  futile.     It  is  a  policy 


158  THE  JEWS 

of  action,  and  a  policy  which  may  proceed  from  plan 
to  execution  before  we  know  it. 

There  used  to  be  quoted  years  ago — and  I  have 
myself  quoted  it  with  approval — ^a  famous  question 
put  by  a  close  and  reasonable  observer  of  public 
affairs  upon  the  Continent,  to  the  most  prominent 
of  Continental  Anti-Semites  in  that  day.  The 
question  was  this :  "  If  you  had  unlimited  power  in 
this  matter,  what  would  you  do  ?  "  The  implied 
answer  was  that  the  Anti-Semite  could  do  nothing. 
He  could  not  make  a  law  which  would  segregate  the 
Jews  for  they  could  escape  that  law  by  mixing  with 
those  around  them.  He  could  not  make  a  law 
exiling  them ;  for,  first,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
define  them ;  secondly,  even  if  that  were  possible, 
those  defined  would  not  be  received  elsewhere. 
What  could  he  do  ?  The  implication  was,  I  say, 
that  he  could  do  nothing;  he  was  supposed,  in  the 
presence  of  that  question,  to  admit  his  futility. 

Unfortunately  we  now  know  that  he  can  do  some- 
thing. The  Anti-Semite  can  persecute,  he  can 
attack.  With  a  sufficient  force  behind  him  he  can 
destroy.  In  much  of  this  destruction  he  would  have, 
in  a  present  state  of  feeling  and  in  most  countries, 
the  mass  of  public  opinion  behind  him.  He  could 
begin  with  a  widespread  examination  of  Jewish 
wealth  and  its  origins  and  an  equally  widespread 
confiscation.  He  could  use  the  dread  of  such  con- 
fiscation as  a  weapon  for  compelling  the  divulgence 
of  Jewish  origins  where  a  man  desired  to  conceal 
them.  He  could  do  this  not  only  in  the  case  of  the 
wealthy  men,  but,  through  the  terror  of  wealthy 
men,  over  the  whole  field  of  the  Jewish  community. 
He  could  introduce  registration  and  with  it  a  segre- 
gation of  the  Jews.     Inspired  as  he  would  be  by  no 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE  169 

desire  for  a  settlement  agreeable  to  them,  but 
solely  for  a  settlement  agreeable  to  hwiself,  he  could 
aim  at  that  harsh  settlement,  and  even  though  he 
might  not  reach  his  goal,  it  is  not  pleasant  to 
envisage  what  he  might  do  on  his  way  to  it. 

But  even  though  the  Anti-Semite  fail  to  acquire 
full  power,  there  remain  attached  to  his  great 
increase  in  numbers  and  intensity  of  feeling  the 
prime  questions,  "  What  is  the  yneaning  of  the 
thing  ?  Why  has  it  arisen  ?  Why  is  it  spreading  ? 
What  are  the  forces  nourishing  it  ?  " 

These  are  the  main  questions  which  those  who 
regret  the  presence  of  such  a  passion  in  the  body 
politic,  which  those  who  are  alarmed  about  it,  which 
those  who,  like  the  Jews  themselves,  must,  if  they 
are  to  avoid  a  catastrophe,  defend  themselves  against 
it,  would  do  well  to  answer.  There  has  not  been  as 
yet  sufficient  time  to  answer  those  questions  fully 
or  to  appreciate  this  great  reaction  in  its  entirety, 
but  we  can  already  judge  it  in  part.  The  Anti- 
Semitic  movement  is  essentially  a  reaction  against 
the  abnormal  growth  in  Jewish  power,  and  the  new 
strength  of  Anti-Semitism  is  largely  due  to  the  Jews 
themselves. 

When  this  angry  enthusiasm  re-  arose  in  its  modern 
form,  first  in  Germany,  then  spreading  to  France, 
next  appearing,  and  now  rapidly  growing,  in  Eng- 
land, it  was  novel  and  confined  to  small  cliques.  The 
truths  which  it  enunciated  were  then  as  unfamiliar 
as  the  false  values  on  which  it  also  reposed.  That 
universal  policy  of  the  Jews  against  w^hich  it  is  part 
of  my  thesis  to  argue,  a  policy  natural  but  none  the 
less  erroneous,  the  policy  of  secrecy,  the  policy  of 
hiding,  at  once  took  advantage  of  what  was  absurd 
in  the  novelty  of  Anti-Semitism.     The  Jew,  in  spite 


160  THE  JEWS 

of  Ms  age-long  experience  of  menace  and  active 
hostility,  in  spite  of  his  knowledge  of  what  this 
sort  of  spirit  had  effected  in  the  past,  did  not  come 
out  into  the  open.  He  did  not  act  against  the  new 
attack  with  open  indignation,  still  less  with  open 
argument,  as  he  should  have  done.  He  took 
advantage  of  its  absurdity,  at  its  beginnings,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  general  public.  He  used  all  his  endea- 
vours to  make  the  word  "  Anti-Semitic  "  a  label  for 
something  hopelessly  ridiculous,  a  subject  for  mere 
laughter,  a  matter  which  no  reasonable  man  should 
for  a  moment  consider  seriously. 

For  something  between  a  dozen  and  twenty  years 
this  policy  was  successful.  The  method  though  less 
and  less  firmly  established  as  time  went  on,  has  not 
yet  quite  failed.  None  the  less  that  policy  was 
very  ill-advised.  It  was  used  not  only  to  ridicule 
the  Anti- Semite,  but  what  was  quite  illegitimate, 
quite  irrational  (and  bound  in  the  long  run  to  be 
fatal),  it  was  used  to  prevent  all  discussion  of  the 
Jewish  question,  though  that  question  was  increas- 
ing every  day  in  practical  importance  and  clamour- 
ing to  be  decided. 

It  was  the  instinctive  policy  with  the  mass  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  a  deliberate  policy  with  most  of  its 
leaders,  not  only  to  use  ridicule  against  Anti-Semi- 
tism but  to  label  as  "  Anti-Semitic  "  any  discussion 
of  the  Jewish  problem  at  all,  or,  for  that  matter,  any 
information  even  on  the  Jewish  problem.  It  was 
used  to  prevent,  through  ridicule,  any  statement  of 
any  fact  with  regard  to  the  Jewish  race  save  a  few 
conventional  compliments  or  a  few  conventional 
and  harmless  jests. 

If  a  man  alluded  to  the  presence  of  a  Jewish 
financial  power  in  any  region — for  instance,  in  India 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE  161 

— ^he  was  an  Anti-Semite.  If  he  interested  himself 
in  the  peculiar  character  of  Jewish  philosophical 
discussions,  especially  in  matters  concerning 
religion,  he  was  an  Anti-  Semite.  If  the  emigrations 
of  the  Jewish  masses  from  country  to  country,  the 
vast  modern  invasion  of  the  United  States,  for 
instance  (which  has  been  organized  and  controlled 
like  an  army  on  the  march),  interested  him  as  an 
historian,  he  could  not  speak  of  it  under  pain  of 
being  called  an  Anti-Semite.  If  he  exposed  a 
financial  swindler  who  happened  to  be  a  Jew,  he 
was  an  Anti-  Semite.  If  he  exposed  a  group  of  Par- 
liamentarians taking  money  from  the  Jews,  he  was 
an  Anti-Semite.  If  he  did  no  more  than  call  a  Jew 
a  Jew,  he  was  an  Anti-Semite.  The  laughter  which 
the  name  used  to  provoke  was  most  foolishly  used 
to  support  nothing  nobler  or  more  definitive  than 
this  wretched  policy  of  concealment.  Anyone  with 
judgment  could  have  told  the  Jews,  had  the  Jews 
cared  to  consult  such  an  one,  that  their  pusillani- 
mous policy  was  bound  to  fail.  It  was  but  a 
postponement  of  the  evil  day. 

You  cannot  long  confuse  interest  with  hatred, 
the  statement  of  plain  and  important  truths  with 
mania,  the  discussion  of  fundamental  questions  with 
silly  enthusiasm,  for  the  same  reason  that  you  can- 
not long  confuse  truth  with  falsehood.  Sooner  or 
later  people  are  bound  to  remark  that  the  defendant 
seems  curiously  anxious  to  avoid  all  investigation 
of  his  case.  The  moment  that  is  generally  observed, 
the  defence  is  on  the  way  to  failure. 

I  say  it  was  a  fatal  policy ;  but  it  was  deliberately 
undertaken  by  the  Jews  and  they  are  now  suffering 
from  its  results.  As  a  consequence  you  have  all 
over  Europe  a  mass  of  plain  men  who  so  far  from 

M 


162  THE  JEWS 

being  scared  off  from  discussing  the  Jewish  problem 
by  this  false  ridicule  are  more  determined  than  ever 
to  thrash  it  out  in  the  open  and  to  get  it  settled  upon 
rational  and  final  lines. 

That  would  perhaps  be  no  great  harm  in  itself. 
It  would  merely  mean  that  a  false  policy  had  failed, 
and  that  proper  frank  and  loyal  discussion  would 
succeed  all  this  hushing  up  and  boycott.  Unfortu- 
nately the  false  policy  had  other  and  much  worse 
consequences.  It  exasperated  men  who  had  already 
begun  to  interest  themselves  in  the  political  dis- 
cussion and  who  would  not  tolerate  undeserved 
ridicule.  It  heaped  up  a  world  of  determined  oppo- 
sition to  the  Jews.  It  is  not  exactly  that  the  Anti- 
Semite  has  already  won  or  even  is  as  yet  certainly 
on  his  way  to  winning,  but  he  now  has  his  chance 
of  winning.  Whereas,  some  few  years  ago,  he  had 
the  tide  against  him,  he  is  now,  through  the  fault 
of  the  Jews  themselves,  at  its  turn.  He  now 
finds  himself  on  an  extreme  wing,  it  is  true,  but 
attached  to  a  very  large  body  which  is  already 
strongly  biassed  against  the  Jews,  dislikes  their 
presence  among  us,  and  is  determined  to  act  against 
them,  not  only  where  they  still  have  great  power, 
but  also  where  that  power  is  visibly  declining,  and 
even  where  they  are  in  danger. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  as  we  survey  this  grow- 
ing menace,  that  a  policy  which  reaches  no  finality 
is  not  on  that  account  futile.  It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  in  the  minds  of  many  men  (one  might 
say  in  the  minds  of  most  men)  during  periods  of 
excitement,  a  policy  of  repression,  though  always 
failing  to  reach  finality,  may  still  be  continuous: 
it  may  become  a  habit  and  may  endure  indefinitely 
in  the  vast  suffering  of  its  victims.     The  Jews  have 


THE  ANTI-SEMITE  163 

seen  that  happen  in  many  a  small  nationality  other 
than  their  own.  They  have  seen,  no  doubt,  that 
continued  repression  acting  in  an  atmosphere  of 
equally  continuous  rebellion  has  usually  in  the  long 
run  failed,  but  they  must  admit  that  the  mainte- 
nance of  such  repression,  with  all  its  accompaniments 
of  moral  and  physical  torture,  confiscation,  exile 
and  all  the  rest,  has  often  been  a  policy  long  drawn 
out.  It  has  been  drawn  out  in  some  cases  for 
centuries.  It  is  not  true  that,  because  a  policy  does 
not  aim  at  a  complete  settlement,  therefore  it  can- 
not be  undertaken  and  vigorously  pursued.  It  can. 
Time  and  again  a  hostile  force  has  attempted  to 
eliminate  opposition,  or  even  contrast,  and  to  elimin- 
ate it  by  every  instrument,  including  massacre  itself. 
Sometimes,  very  rarely,  it  has  succeeded.  Usually 
it  has,  in  the  long  run,  failed.  But  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases  it  has  at  any  rate  continued  long 
after  its  failure  was  apparent.  That  is  the  danger 
which  menaces  from  the  phenomenon  I  have 
examined  in  this  chapter.  It  would  be  madness  in 
the  Jews  to  neglect  that  phenomenon.  It  is  now  so 
strong  in  numbers,  intensity  of  conviction,  and 
passion  that  it  menaces  their  whole  immediate 
future  in  our  civilization.  Its  ultimate  causes  we 
have  explored.  Its  immediate  cause,  the  cause  of  its 
sudden  development  and  present  startling  growth, 
we  have  seen  to  be  the  Jewish  action  in  Russia,  and 
to  this,  which  I  have  already  touched  upon  in  my 
third  chapter,  where  I  sketched  the  sequence  of 
events  leading  up  to  the  present  situation,  I  will 
next  turn,  in  order  to  make  a  more  detailed  examina- 
tion of  it.  For  undoubtedly  it  is  the  sudden  appear- 
ance of  Jewish  Bolshevism  that  has  brought  things 
to  their  present  crisis. 


BOLSHEVISM 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BOLSHEVISM 

The  Bolshevist  explosion,  which  will  appear  in 
history  I  think  as  the  point  of  departure  from 
which  shall  date  the  new  attitude  of  the  Western 
nations  towards  the  Jews,  is  not  only  a  field  in 
which  we  can  study  the  evil  effect  of  secrecy, 
but  one  in  which  we  can  analyse  all  the  various 
forces  which  tend  to  bring  Israel  into  such  cease- 
less conflict  with  the  society  around  it. 

It  merits,  therefore,  a  very  special  examination, 
both  as  an  opportunity  for  the  study  of  our  sub- 
ject and  as  a  turning-point  of  the  first  moment  in 
history. 

Why  did  a  Jewish  organization  thus  attempt 
to  transform  society  ?  Why  did  it  use  the  methods 
which  we  know  it  used  ?  Why  was  that  particular 
venue  chosen  ?  What  aim  had  the  actors  in 
view  ?  What  measure  of  success  did  they  hope 
to  achieve  ?  By  what  method  do  they  propose 
to  extend  their  influence  ?  When  we  can  answer 
those  questions  we  shall  have  gone  far  to  discovering 
the  almost  fatal  causes  of  conflict  between  this 
peculiar  nation  and  those  among  whom  they  move. 

The  answers  usually  given  to  these  questions 
by  the  avowed  enemies  of  the  Jewish  race  are 
always  inadequate  and  often  false.     When  they 

167 


168  THE  JEWS 

contain  an  element  of  truth  (which  they  often  do) 
that  truth  is  quite  insufficient  to  account  for  the  full 
phenomena.  But  the  accretions  of  falsehood  and 
exaggeration  render  the  whole  thing  inexplicable — 
indeed,  these  explanations  of  the  Russian  revolu- 
tion are  very  good  specimens  of  the  way  in  which 
the  European  so  misunderstands  the  Jew  that  he 
imputes  to  him  powers  which  neither  he  nor  any 
other  poor  mortal  can  ever  exercise. 

Thus  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  this  political 
upheaval  was  part  of  one  highly-organized  plot 
centuries  old,  the  agents  of  which  were  millions 
of  human  beings  all  pledged  to  the  destruction 
of  our  society  and  acting  in  complete  discipline 
under  a  few  leaders  superhumanly  wise  !  The  thing 
is  nonsense  on  the  face  of  it.  Men  have  no  capacity 
for  acting  in  this  fashion.  They  are  far  too  limited, 
far  too  diverse. 

Moreover,  the  motive  is  completely  lacking. 
Why  merely  destroy  and  why,  if  your  object  is 
merely  to  destroy,  manifest  such  wide  differences 
in  your  aims?  One  may  say  justly  that  there 
is  always  a  tendency  to  reaction  against  alien 
surroundings,  and  in  so  far  as  that  reaction  is 
intense  and  effective  it  is  destructive  of  those 
surroundings.  One  may  point  out  that  such 
reaction  in  the  case  of  the  Jews,  as  in  the  case  of 
all  other  alien  bodies,  is  in  the  main  unconscious 
and  instinctive.  All  that  is  true  enough ;  but  the 
conception  of  a  vast  age-long  plot,  culminating 
in  the  contemporary  Russian  affair,  will  not  hold 
water,  any  more  than  will  the  corresponding  halluci- 
nation which  led  men  to  believe  that  the  French 
revolution  (a  thing  utterly  different  in  kind  from 
the  Russian)   was  the  mere  outward  expression 


BOLSHEVISM  169 

of  a  strictly  disciplined  secret  body.  In  the  case 
of  the  French  Kevolution  everything  was  put  down 
(by  the  forerunners  of  to-day's  Anti-Semitic 
enthusiasts)  to  the  secret  agency  of  The  Order  of 
Templars  acting  unweariedly  through  six  centuries, 
and  finally  bringing  down  the  French  monarchy. 
In  the  case,  of  course,  of  the  Bolshevist  anarchy 
a  still  longer  range  is  given  to  the  final  result: 
for  "Templars"  read  "Jews,"  and  for  "600" 
read  "  2,000 "  years.    It  is  all  smoke. 

More  serious  is  the  statement  that  this  combina- 
tion of  Jews  for  the  destniction  of  the  old  Russian 
society  was  an  act  of  racial  revenge.  There  is  a 
great  element  of  truth  in  that.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  greater  part  of  the  Jews  who  took  over 
power  in  the  Russian  cities  four  years  ago  felt  an 
appetite  for  revenge  against  the  old  Russian  State 
comparable  to  that  felt  by  any  oppressed  people 
against  their  oppressors.  Probably  it  was  more 
intense  even  than  any  other  example  that  could 
be  quoted.  We  are  all  witnesses  to  the  way  in 
which  the  Russian  people,  religion,  and  govern- 
ment, and  particularly  the  person  and  office  of 
the  Emperor — were  attacked  and  decried  by  the 
Jews  in  Western  Europe,  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Jews  ceaselessly  conspired  against  the  Russian 
State,  and  of  the  brutal  repression  to  which  they 
were  subject.  When  you  release  a  force  of  hatred 
so  violent  it  may  run  to  any  length.  That  sudden 
release,  that  sudden  opportunity  for  satisfying 
the  thirst  for  vengeance,  must  explain  a  very  large 
part  of  what  followed.  But  even  that  does  not 
account  for  the  whole.  It  would  account  for  mere 
massacre  and  mere  chaos.  It  would  not  account 
for    the    attempts — rather    pitiful    attempts — at 


170  THE  JEWS 

construction  and  for  the  obviously  designed  system 
of  direction  which  has  continued  on  the  same  lines 
since  the  Jews  first  assumed  power  and  is  still 
fully  manifest  after  nearly  five  years  of  that  power. 

Still  less  is  it  sufiicient  to  say  that  the  Jew  is 
everywhere  the  organizer  and  leader  of  revolution 
and  that  we  only  see  him  at  work  in  Russia  with 
greater  vigour  and  thoroughness  because  the  oppor- 
tunity is  there  greater. 

The  Jew  is  not  everywhere  a  revolutionary.  He 
is  everywhere  discontented  with  a  society  alien  to 
him :  that  is  natural  and  inevitable.  But  he  does 
not  exercise  his  power  invariably,  or  even  ordinarily, 
towards  the  oversetting  of  an  established  social 
order  by  which,  incidentally,  he  often  largely 
benefits. 

You  do  not  find  the  Jew  in  history  perpetually 
leading  the  innumerable  revolts  which  citizens  in 
the  mass  make  against  the  privileged  or  the  superior 
conditions  of  the  minority.  He  has  sometimes 
benefited  by  these  movements  in  the  past;  more 
often  suffered.  We  often  find  individual  Jews 
sympathizing  with  the  revolutionary  side,  but 
we  also  find  many  individual  Jews  sympathizing 
with  the  other.  The  Jew  is  not,  in  the  history 
of  Europe,  the  prime  agent  of  revolution:  quite 
the  contrary.  The  great  acts  of  violence, 
successful  and  unsuccessful,  which  have  marked 
our  society  from  the  agrarian  troubles  of  pagan 
Rome  to  the  French  Revolution,  the  land  war 
in  Ireland,  the  Chartist  Movement  in  London, 
or  whatever  modern  movement  you  will,  have 
appealed  much  more  to  the  fighting  instincts  and 
political  traditions  of  our  race  than  they  have  to 
the  Jews.     They  are  marked  everywhere  by  an 


BOLSHEVISM  171 

attitude  towards  property  and  patriotism  which 
are  the  very  opposite  of  the  Jews'  characteristics. 
The  Revolutions  of  the  past  were  for  the  better 
distribution  of  property  and  for  the  betterment 
of  the  State.  Often  they  were  openly  undertaken 
because  patriotism  had  been  ofiended  by  defeat 
in  war  and  because  the  Nation  was  thought  to 
be  betrayed.  Usually  they  were  jingo  and  always 
for  distribution  of  wealth. 

It  is  the  unique  mark  of  the  Russian  revolution 
and  of  its  attempted  extension  elsewhere  that  it 
repudiates  patriotism  and  the  division  of  property. 
In  that,  it  differs  from  all  others ;  and  it  is  markedly, 
obviously,  Jewish.  But  why  had  the  Jews  a 
chance  of  action  in  Russia  which  they  lacked  else- 
where ? 

What  were  the  special  characters  in  the  Russian 
opportunity  which  made  the  Jew  the  creator  of  the 
whole  movement? 

There  are,  I  take  it,  three  main  factors  present 
in  this  case  peculiarly  suitable  to  the  Jewish  effort. 

In  the  first  place,  this  revolution  fell  upon,  and  was 
directed  towards,  a  particular  social  phenomenon 
in  which  that  profound  instinct  in  the  European, 
the  desire  for  settled  property,  had  decayed.  It  fell 
upon  the  state  of  affairs  called  Industrial  Capitalism, 
the  chief  mark  of  which  is  the  destruction  in  the 
mass  subjected  to  it  (or,  at  any  rate,  the  atrophying) 
of  that  essential  part  of  the  European  soul — owner- 
ship. The  Jew  is,  undoubtedly,  unable  to  sym- 
pathize with  us  in  that  central  core  of  our  civic 
instincts.  He  has  never  understood  the  European 
sense  of  property  and  I  doubt  if  he  ever  will. 

But  in  Russia  Industrial  Capitalism  was  quite 
new.     The  resentment  against  it  was  keen.     The 


172  THE  JEWS 

victims  were  the  sons  of  peasants,  or  had.  them- 
selves been  born  peasants,  so  that  this  proletarian 
mass  in  the  Russian  towns,  though  less  than  a 
tenth  of  the  whole  nation,  was  peculiarly  open  to 
propaganda  against  its  masters.  And  an  attack 
successfully  conducted,  on  that  weakest  point  of 
modern  Capitalism,  might  easily  succeed  and  then 
spread  to  neighbouring  industrialized  centres  in 
Poland,  Germany,  and  so  westward. 

Now  the  attack  on  this  international  phenomenon, 
an  attack  directed  against  Industrial  Capitalism, 
required  an  international  force.  It  needed  men 
who  had  international  experience  and  were  ready 
with  an  international  formula. 

There  are  two,  and  only  two,  organized  inter- 
national forces  in  Europe  to-day  with  a  soul  and 
identity  in  them.  One  is  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  the  other  is  Jewry.  But  the  Catholic  Church, 
for  reasons  which  I  will  discuss  in  a  moment, 
cannot  and  never  will  directly  attack  industrial 
capitalism.  It  will  undoubtedly  attack  that  system 
in  flank  and  indirectly  destroy  it  in  the  long  run 
wherever  the  Faith  has  a  strong  hold  upon  masses 
of  people.  But  it  will  not  and  cannot  directly 
attack  it.  The  Jew,  on  the  other  hand,  is  free  to 
attack  it  precisely  because  our  sense  of  property 
means  nothing  to  him,  is  to  him  something  strange, 
and  even,  I  think,  comic.  Further,  the  Jew  was 
present,  he  was  on  the  spot.     The  Church  was  not. 

Of  the  two  international  forces  present,  therefore, 
the  Jews  alone  could  act. 

Here  I  must  digress  and  say  why  the  other  great 
international  force,  the  Catholic  Church,  has  not 
been  able — and  will  never  be  able — to  attack  Indus- 
trial Capitalism  as  a  whole  and  directly,  though, 


BOLSHEVISM  173 

as  I  have  said,  it  acts  indirectly  as  a  solvent  of 
this  evil  and  will  destroy  it  wherever  society 
remains  Catholic.  The  Catholic  Church,  not  only 
in  its  abstract  doctrine,  but  acting  as  the  expres- 
sion of  our  European  civilization,  is  profoundly 
attached  to  the  conception  of  private  property. 
It  makes  the  family  the  unit  of  the  State  and  it 
perceives  that  the  freedom  of  the  family  is  most 
secure  where  the  family  owns.  It  perceives,  as 
do  all  Europeans,  instinctively  or  explicitly,  that 
property  is  the  correlative  of  freedom,  or,  at  any 
rate,  of  that  only  kind  of  freedom  which  we 
Europeans  care  to  have:  that  it  is  the  safeguard 
of  spiritual  health  (the  mark  of  which  is  humour), 
of  breadth  and  diversity  in  action,  of  elasticity  in 
the  State,  of  permanence  in  institutions.  Pro- 
perty, as  widely  distributed  as  possible,  but  sacred 
as  a  principle,  is  an  inevitable  social  accompaniment 
of  Catholicism. 

Apart  from  this,  it  is  also  a  definite  feature  of 
Catholic  doctrine  to  deny  that  private  property 
is  immoral.  No  Catholic  can  say  that  private 
property  is  immoral  without  cutting  himself  off 
from  the  Communion  of  the  Church,  any  more 
than  he  can  say  that  the  authority  in  the  State 
is  immoral.  He  cannot  be  a  communist  in  abstract 
morals  any  more  than  he  can  be  an  anarchist. 

Now  Industrial  Capitalism  is  a  disease  of  pro- 
perty. It  is  the  monstrous  state  of  affairs  in  which 
a  very  few  men  derive  their  vast  advantage  from 
the  corresponding  fact  that  most  men  whom  they 
exploit  do  not  own. 

But  it  remains  true  that  the  sheet-anchor  of 
Capitalism  is  a  sense  of  ownership  in  the  mass  as 
well  as  in  the  privileged  few.     The  only  moral 


174  THE  JEWS 

force  remaining  to  Industrial  Capitalism,  the  only 
spiritual  tie  which  prevents  its  dissolution,  is  this 
admission  by  the  European  mind  that  property  is 
a  right — even  property  in  a  diseased  and  exaggerated 
form. 

The  whole  of  the  operations  of  Industrial  Capital- 
ism rely  upon  the  sanctity  of  property  and  the 
sanctity  of  contract  which  develops  from  the 
sanctity  of  property.  And  whenever  society  loses 
this  sense,  industrial  capitalism  will  fall  into  chaos. 
The  Church  cannot  deny  that  one  moral  principle. 
Its  action  will  always  be  towards  the  dissolution 
of  the  great  accumulations  promoted  by  capitalism. 
It  always  will  work  indirectly  for  the  establish- 
ment of  well-divided  property,  an  ideal  defined 
by  the  voice  of  its  great  modern  Pope,  Leo  XIII, 
who  explicitly  states  it  in  his  Rerum  Novarum. 
But  the  Church  can  never  take  the  short  cut  of 
destroying  Industrial  Capitalism  root  and  branch 
and  at  once,  by  erecting  against  it  the  doctrine  of 
Communism  or  (as  many  people  call  diluted  Com- 
munism) "  Socialism."  It  never  can  do  so  in 
theory,  and  still  less  will  it  ever  do  so  in  practice. 
A  Catholic  society  will  always  tend  to  be  a  society 
of  owners:  with  all  the  elements  of  co-operation, 
with  the  Guild,  with  masses  of  corporate  property 
attached  to  the  State  or  connected  with  the  city, 
with  the  college,  with  the  corporation.  For  without 
such  corporate  property  in  a  State,  property  is 
never  well  founded. 

The  Jew  has  neither  that  political  instinct  in 
his  national  tradition  nor  a  religious  doctrine 
supporting  and  expressing  such  an  instinct.  The 
same  thing  in  him  which  makes  him  a  speculator 
and   a   nomad   blinds   him   to,  and   makes   him 


BOLSHEVISM  175 

actually  contemptuous  of,  the  European  sense  of 
property.  When  therefore  we  have  reached,  through 
Industrial  Capitalism,  or  any  other  social  disease, 
a  state  of  affairs  in  which  the  practical  denial  of 
property  is  possible  because  the  mass  of  men  have 
lost  the  desire  for  it,  and  when  the  repudiation  of 
property  offers  an  immediate  solution  for  intolerable 
evils,  then  the  Jew  can  appear  at  once  as  a  leader. 

One  must  find  in  such  a  movement  an  inter- 
national leader  because  the  disease  is  international, 
and  still  more  because  the  proposed  cure  of  that 
disease,  through  Communism,  must  he  international 
if  it  is  to  succeed.  A  Communist  society  may 
stand  apart  from  the  general  society  of  owners  in 
other  countries,  but  if  it  is  to  succeed  in  competition 
with  them  it  must  convert  them  to  its  own  creed. 

The  Jew  took  international  action  for  granted. 
He  took  the  narrow  and  false  economic  view  of 
property — that  it  was  a  mere  institution  to  be 
modified  indefinitely,  and,  if  necessary,  abolished. 
He  had  an  obvious  opportunity  for  leadership 
accorded  to  him  when  international  action  against 
property  was  demanded.  Again,  our  national 
sense,  patriotism,  which  is  incomprehensible  to 
the  Jew  save  on  the  false  analogy  of  his  own 
peculiar  nomadic  and  tribal  patriotism,  is  a  check 
upon  Communism,  and,  indeed,  against  revolution 
of  any  kind.  The  process  of  thought  in  the 
patriotic  citizen — largely  unconscious  but  none  the 
less  efficacious — is  somewhat  as  follows: 

"  I  cannot  function  save  as  a  citizen  of  my 
nation,  and,  what  is  more,  that  nation  made  me 
what  I  am.  It  is  my  creator  in  a  sense  and  so 
has  authority  over  me.  I  must  even  give  up  my 
life  in  its  defence  if  necessary,  because  but  for  its 


176  THE  JEWS 

existence  I  and  those  like  me  could  not  be.  My 
happiness,  my  freedom  of  individual  action,  my 
self-expression  are  all  bound  up  with  the  existence 
of  the  civic  unit  of  which  I  am  a  part.  If  something 
which  appears  to  me  good  in  the  abstract,  or  which 
apparently  will  procure  for  me  a  material  good, 
involves  danger  to  that  civic  unit,  I  must  forego 
the  good,  regarding  the  continued  existence  and 
strength  of  my  people  as  a  greater  good  to  which 
the  lesser  should  be  sacrificed." 

That,  I  say  roughly,  is  the  expression  of  the 
patriotic  instinct  in  the  European  man.  That 
is  what  he  has  felt  for  many  and  many  a  great 
State  in  the  past  and  for  every  polity  to  which  he 
has  ever  belonged;  that  is  what  he  feels  to-day 
for  his  country. 

The  Jew  has  the  same  feeling,  of  course,  for  his 
Israel,  but  since  that  nation  is  not  a  collection  of 
human  beings,  inhabiting  one  place  and  living 
by  traditions  rooted  in  its  soil,  since  it  has  not  a 
strong,  visible,  external  form,  his  patriotism  is 
necessarily  of  a  different  complexion.  It  has 
different  connotations  and  our  patriotism  seems 
negligible  to  him. 

The  implied  fallacies  current  in  the  modern 
industrial  revolutionary  formulae,  in  such  phrases 
as  "  What  does  it  matter  to  the  working  man 
whether  he  is  exploited  by  a  German  or  an  English 
master  ?  "  or,  again,  "  Why  should  the  individual 
Tom  Smith  be  sacrificed  for  an  abstraction  called 
England  ?  "  or  again,  "  Nationalism  is  the  great 
obstacle  to  the  full  development  of  humanity" — 
all  that  sort  of  thing,  which  we  feel  by  instinct  and 
can,  if  it  is  necessary,  prove  by  reason  to  be  non- 
sense in  our  case,  sounds,  in  Jewish  ears,  as  very 


BOLSHEVISM  177 

good  sense  indeed.  For  in  his  case  these  things 
involve  no  fallacies  at  all;  they  apply  to  him 
vividly  and  exactly.  Why  should  the  Jew  be 
sacrificed  for  England  ?  In  what  way  is  England, 
or  France,  or  Ireland,  or  any  other  nation  necessary 
to  Mm  ?  Again,  is  it  not  obvious  in  his  eyes  that 
these  terms,  "  France,  Ireland,  England,  Russia," 
are  but  abstractions  ?  The  real  thing  in  his  eyes 
when  he  thinks  of  us,  is'the  individual  and  his  certain 
needs,  especially  his  physical  and  material  needs; 
because  upon  these  there  can  be  no  doubt;  upon 
these  all  are  agreed ;  these  are  visible  and  tangible. 
"England,"  "France,"  "Poland"  are  whimsies. 

It  is  true  that  if  you  were  to  put  his  special  case 
to  the  Jew  with  similar  force  and  say,  "  No  Jew 
should  run  any  risk  for  Israel,"  "  no  Jew  should 
suffer  any  inconvenience  by  trying  to  help  a  fellow 
Jew  in  distress,"  "  the  idea  of  Israel  is  a  vague 
abstraction — all  that  counts  is  the  individual  Jew 
and  especially  his  physical  requirements"  ;  if  you 
said  that  sort  of  thing  you  would  be  offending 
the  most  profound  instincts  of  Jewish  patriotism  and 
you  would,  in  fact,  clash  with  the  overt  and  covert 
action  of  the  Jews  throughout  the  world.  But 
the  Jew  would  answer  that,  as  his  was  an  inter- 
national polity,  the  argument  applying  to  our 
national  polity  did  not  apply  to  him;  that  his 
feelings,  though  analogous  to  ours,  were  of  a  different 
kind,  and  that,  at  any  rate,  he  cannot  sacrifice  a 
fine  idea  of  his  like  Communism  for  our  provincial 
and  local  habit,  called  by  us  Europeans  "  the  love 
of  our  country." 

There  is  more  than  this  in  the  business. 
Even  those  truths  wliich  we  know  to  be  truths 
have  little  effect  upon  us,  unless  they  enter  into 


178  THE  JEWS 

the  practice  of  our  lives.  There  are,  no  doubt,  a 
number  of  Jews  who  would  admit  at  once  the 
truth  of  any  nationalist  statement  made  by  a 
European.  When  a  Frenchman,  or  an  Englishman, 
or  a  Russian  says  to  him,  "  My  first  duty  is  to  my 
people;  I  must  keep  them  strong  as  well  as  in 
being  and  I  must  sacrifice  my  interests  to  theirs 
when  it  is  necessary."  there  are  many  Jews  who 
would  answer:  "  You  are  quite  right.  The  theory 
is  sound.  Man  can  only  function  as  a  part  of  a 
particular  society,"  and  so  forth ;  but  it  is  one  thing 
to  recognize  a  truth  and  another  thing  to  experience 
it  in  one's  bones,  as  it  were,  and  these  truths, 
even  where  he  is  admitting  them,  are  truths 
indifferent  to  the  Jew. 

Therefore  when,  as  in  the  particular  case  of 
Russia,  a  national  feeling  stood  in  the  way  of  an 
abstract  ideal,  it  seemed  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  to  the  Jew  that  the  national  obstacle 
should  go  to  the  wall  in  order  that  his  ideal  of 
Communism  might  triumph. 

There  lay  behind  this  great  change  in  the  Russian 
towns,  and  the  capture  of  what  remains  of  Russian 
government  by  the  Jewish  Committees,  a  force 
most  positive.  It  was  the  sense  of  social  justice, 
the  indignation  against  indefensible  evils. 

That  sense  of  social  justice,  that  indignation 
against  indefensible  modern  evils,  we  all  feel. 
There  may  be  men  among  the  wealthier  classes 
of  Western  Europe  who  are  so  ignorant  of  the  past, 
or  so  stupid,  that  they  do  honestly  believe  Industrial 
Capitalism  to  be  an  inevitable  and  even  perhaps 
a  good  thing.  But  such  men  must  be  very  rare. 
Not  only  must  they  be  rare,  but  they  cannot  have 
any  wide  social  experience.      A  man  has  only  got 


BOLSHEVISM  179 

to  live  the  life  of  the  poor  in  the  great  industrial 
cities  for  a  day  to  see  the  enormity  of  the  wrong 
that  has  to  be  righted.  There  are,  of  course,  not 
a  few  but  many  thousands  of  individuals  who  try 
to  find  arguments  for  Industrial  Capitalism,  either 
because  they  benefit  themselves  through  the  system 
and  are  the  richer  by  it,  or  because  they  are  the 
hired  servants  of  those  who  so  benefit? — and  of 
this  kind  are  the  writers  in  the  capitalist  press. 
But  all  these,  who  are  hired  advocates,  or  advocates 
with  a  direct  proprietary  interest  in  the  continuance 
of  the  modern  disease,  may  be  neglected ;  for  they 
are  not  in  good  faith.  They  are  not  really  argumg 
that  the  thing  is  good  in  itself,  they  are  only  trying 
to  find  arguments  as  lawyers  do  for  something 
which  they  have  to  defend  and  which  in  their 
hearts  they  admit  is  evil ;  or  to  the  evil  of  which 
they  are  indifferent  so  long  as  it  gives  them  a 
disproportionate  share  of  material  enjoyment. 

We  must  add  to  these  the  sincere  man  who  will 
admit  the  domination  of  Industrial  Capitalism 
because  he  honestly  believes  that,  bad  as  it  is,  it 
is  now  become  inevitable  and  that  to  tamper  with 
it  would  bring  the  whole  State  into  anarchy. 
"  Such  as  it  is,"  he  would  say,  "  the  structure  of 
our  society  now  depends  upon  it.  We  may  palliate 
its  evils,  we  may  try  very  gradually  to  transform 
its  worst  features.  But  in  its  essence  it  must  remain 
as  it  is,  or  our  last  state  will  be  worse  than  our 
first." 

Of  this  kind  are  those  who  argue  that  any  social 
experiment  antagonistic  to  Industrial  Capitalism, 
if  pushed  sufficiently  far,  would  result  in  famine 
and  chaos  and  even  physical  evils  far  worse  than 
the  physical  evils  which  the  mass  of  men  have  to 


180  THE  JEWS 

suffer  in  the  great  towns  which  capitalism  has 
produced. 

Apart  from  these  categories,  the  masses  of  men,  I 
say,  to-day  are  convinced  that  Industrial  Capi- 
talism is  an  evil,  an  evil  of  the  grossest  sort; 
an  evil  of  a  sort  unknown  to  the  greater  part  of 
human  history  and  unknown  to-day  in  the  greater 
part  of  the  human  race ;  an  evil  which  those  peas- 
ant societies,  or  societies  of  well-divided  property 
throughout  Europe,  are  happy  to  have  escaped; 
and  an  evil  from  which  we,  who  are  caught  in  it, 
are  trying  to  escape  as  best  we  may. 

In  that  modifying  phrase  "  as  best  we  may  "  lies 
the  crux,  for  the  great  mass  of  Europeans  feel 
that  any  attack  on  Industrial  Capitalism  which 
denies  the  nation  its  supreme  place,  or  which 
impedes  the  superior  task  of  keeping  the  nation 
strong  and  wealthy,  is  barred;  they  also  feel 
instinctively  that  any  attack  w^hich  denies  the 
general  right  of  private  property  and  the  value  of 
that  institution  to  the  healthy  conduct  of  our 
affairs  is  also  barred.  The  great  mass  of  our  race, 
when  faced  by  the  problem  of  Industrial  Capitalism, 
feel  that  it  has  to  be  solved  in  some  way  that  will 
neither  destroy  property  nor  the  nation  through 
which  the  individual  alone  can  function. 

But  this,  which  is  true  of  the  great  mass  of  our 
race,  is  not  true  of  the  Jews.  Therefore  they  were 
able,  in  the  case  of  the  Russian  Revolution,  to  go 
straight  for  their  object,  and  that  object  was  (apart 
from  the  obvious  object  of  revenge,  of  love  of  power, 
and  the  rest)  the  destruction  of  an  economic 
inequality. 

These  Jews  who  have  destroyed  what  we  knew 
as  Russia  were  undoubtedly  possessed  of  a  political 


BOLSHEVISM  181 

ideal :  the  ideal  of  Communism.  No  doubt  many- 
individuals  among  them  (all  ultimately)  would 
prefer  the  good  of  Israel  to  the  good  of  any  Russian. 
No  doubt  the  wreaking  of  vengeance  upon  former 
oppressors  was  strong,  as  also  the  appetite  for 
destroying  a  general  and  a  national  sentiment 
alien  to  them  and  even  repulsive  to  them;  but 
there  remains,  as  a  positive  motive  behind  the 
whole  aSair,  the  ideal  of  Communism.  The  Jews 
alone  of  the  forces  present  were  capable  of  heartily 
entertaining  that  ideal,  and  were  free  of  all  obstacles 
against  the  achievement  of  it — the  obstacle  of 
patriotism,  the  obstacle  of  religion,  the  obstacle 
of  the  sense  of  property. 

These  considerations,  I  take  it,  are  what  explains 
the  Jewish  character  of  the  upheaval  in  the  East, 
with  its  destruction  of  the  Russian  nation,  its 
enormous  experiments  in  social  economy,  its  inevit- 
able impoverishment  of  the  State  as  a  whole,  its 
enthusiastic  support  by  the  minority  which  accepts 
its  doctrine. 

Those  very  few  men  and  women  who  have  been 
witnesses  of  the  Jewish  experiment  in  Russia 
(excluding  those  engaged  in  propaganda  upon  one 
side  or  the  other)  give  us  a  picture  which  is  much 
what  we  should  have  expected  of  the  situation. 

It  seems  that  the  great  mass  of  the  nation  has 
affirmed  the  instinct  of  private  property  with  the 
greatest  vigour,  and  that  some  nine- tenths  of  the 
Russians  have  settled  down  upon  the  land  to  which 
they  always  claimed  ownership  and  in  which  their 
Bense  of  ownership  is  more  fierce  than  ever.  In  the 
towns  the  unnatural  system — unnatural  because 
it  opposes  all  our  instincts  as  Europeans — works 
more  and  more  slackly  as  the  original  system  of 


182  THE  JEWS 

terror  weakens.  For  it  is  clear  tliat  Communism 
needs  a  despot,  and  the  active  rule  of  a  despot  is 
necessarily  short:  it  is  a  system  incapable  of 
transition  and  therefore  of  duration. 

The  perfectly  explicable  but  deplorable  exercise 
of  vengeance  by  the  Jews  has  been  directed  against 
what  we  euphemistically  term  the  governing 
directing  classes,  who  have  been  massacred  whole- 
sale and  whose  remnants  are  subjected  to  perpetual 
persecution. 

The  productivity  of  the  industrial  masses  has 
naturally  sunk  to  a  very  low  level,  because  under 
Communism  it  can  only  work  through  something 
like  military  discipline,  and  work  done  under 
those  conditions  is  on  a  much  lower  productive 
level  than  free  work. 

But  the  real  interest  in  the  Jewish  revolution  in 
Russia,  to  which  is  now  permanently  affixed  the 
name  of  Bolshevist  (which  is  nothing  more  than 
the  Russian  for  "whole-hogger"),  lies  in  these 
two  points:  first,  the  continued  propaganda  of 
Communism  throughout  the  world  (which  propa- 
ganda in  organization  and  direction  is  in  the  hands 
of  Jewish  agents) ;  secondly,  and  much  more  impor- 
tant, the  effect  of  the  Jewish  revolution  in  producing 
hostility  to  the  Jews  throughout  the  world. 

I  say  this  second  fact  is  much  more  important 
because  it  is  the  more  real  and  the  more  enduring. 
You  will  never  make  a  Communist  of  the  highly- 
civilized,  tenacious,  intelligent  and  humorous  Occi- 
dental European.  You  will  no  more  make  a  Com- 
munist of  him  than  you  will  make  him  walk  on  all 
fours  or  permanently  abjure  the  use  of  good  liquor. 
You  may  get  middle-class  faddists  to  accept  Com- 
munism as  a  mere  creed,  and  of  course  you  can  easily 


BOLSHEVISM  183 

get  exasperated  men,  ground  down  by  capitalism, 
to  accept  any  theory,  any  system,  which  promises 
them  relief.  But  you  will  not  get  Communism 
working  in  men  who  boast  the  old  European  blood, 
in  the  descendants  of  those  who  created  our  past 
and  its  monuments.  They  will  certainly  preserve 
their  traditions  and  their  character.  Though  the 
peril  must  be  combated,  and  is  being  successfully 
combated  everywhere,  it  is  not  a  peril  of  great 
magnitude  to  the  West. 

The  other  effect  of  the  Jewish  revolution  in 
Russia — ihQ  peril  into  which  it  has  put  the  Jews 
themselves — is  permanent  and  is  of  the  first  magni- 
tude. I  know  no  way  to  meet  it  except  to  explain 
why  that  revolution  was  almost  necessarily  a  Jewish 
revolution,  to  emphasize  the  sincerity  of  the  Jews 
who  have  led  it,  to  exculpate  them  as  far  as  possible, 
and,  at  any  rate,  to  shield  their  unfortunate  com- 
patriots abroad  from  the  consequences  of  what 
was  certainly  a  very  bad  piece  of  tactics  so  far  as 
the  future  of  this  people  was  concerned. 

We  ought,  I  think,  not  to  nourish  a  new  and 
special  hostility  against  the  Jew  on  account  of 
what  he  has  done  in  Russia,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
to  excuse  him,  especially  because  he  is  a  Jew. 
We  ought,  as  it  seems  to  me,  to  say:  "  He  had 
reasons  for  action  and  excuse  for  action  which  men 
of  our  race  would  not  have  had,  and  though  we 
must  prevent  that  action  from  spreading,  we  must 
not  allow  what  seemed  quite  natural  under  the 
circumstances  to  the  Jew  to  warp  our  attempted 
solution  of  the  Jewish  problem.  We  ought  to 
work  for  its  solution  as  impartially  and  as  soberly  as 
though  the  provocation  of  Bolshevism  had  never 
been  given." 


184  THE  JEWS 

That  sounds  an  extreme  thing  to  say,  and  I  fear 
it  will  be  ridiculed  by  most  of  those  who  (as  they 
tell  us)  have  had  their  eyes  opened  by  the  Bolshevist 
explosion  and  who  are  now  confirmed  enemies  of 
the  Jewish  people.  But  though  it  sound  fantastic, 
I  am  convinced  that  it  is  a  right  attitude.  To 
lose  one's  judgment  on  a  permanent  problem 
through  panic  or  heat,  to  forget  the  elements  of 
such  a  problem  merely  because  it  has  been  presented 
to  us  suddenly  in  an  acute  form,  is  the  negation 
of  reason.  As  well  might  a  man  who  is  dealing 
with  the  problem  of  fermented  liquor,  and  trying 
to  get  people  to  use  it  rationally,  let  his  judgment 
be  overcome  by  a  case  of  delirium  tremens  and  rush 
thereupon  into  some  scheme  of  prohibition.  The 
very  test  which  distinguishes  good  statesmanship 
from  bad  is  the  power  to  keep  one's  head  under 
provocations  like  these;  to  maintain  a  middle 
course  and  to  aim  at  whatever  solution  our  reason 
tells  us  to  be  just  under  normal  circumstances. 
We  who  saw  the  gravity  of  the  Jewish  problem 
long  before  the  recognition  of  it  was  general,  and 
who  studied  it  under  calmer  conditions  for  many 
years,  have  a  right  to  be  heard  now :  now  that  the 
tide  is  making  against  these  people  and  that  the 
fear  of  anarchy  threatens  to  turn  men's  heads. 

We  were  long  blamed  for  attacking  the  Jews, 
we  are  already  blamed  for  defending  them.  It 
is  a  proof  that  our  attitude  is  well  grounded  and 
unaffected  by  fashion. 

The  Bolshevist  revolution  will  not  last.  Its 
Jewish  character  was  inevitable.  It  had  a  side  to  it 
of  Jewish  enthusiasm  for  a  sort  of  incorporeal 
justice,  and,  in  any  case,  it  ought  not  to  be  allowed 
to  deflect  us  from  a  conclusion  which  the  much 


BOLSHEVISM  185 

larger  lines  of  history  and  all  general  considerations 
of  reason  impose. 

Our  conclusion,  as  I  have  said,  is  a  recognition 
and  protection  of  the  Jewish  nation  as  something 
quite  different  from  ourselves  and  yet  necessarily 
inhabiting  our  society.  Such  a  full  recognition 
leaves  us  fore- armed  against  the  tendency  in  the 
Jew  (which  we  cannot  avoid)  to  forget  our  national 
feelings  and  to  misconceive  our  sense  of  ownership. 
It  would  render  impossible  the  conspiracies  and 
the  vengeance  which  have  destroyed  Kussia,  and 
I  believe  that  had  the  former  Russian  Government 
treated  the  Jews  as  I  say  they  should  be  treated, 
it  would  be  in  power  to-day. 


THE  POSITION  IN  THE  WORLD 
AS  A  WHOLE 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  POSITION  IN  THE  WORLD  AS  A 
WHOLE 

The  danger  of  the  Jewish  nation  in  the  world 
to-day  may  be  summed  up  in  this  phrase: — 

"  The  Jews  are  obtaining  control  and  we  will 
not  be  controlled  by  them." 

That  is  the  simplest  formula,  and  the  one  which 
would  be  immediately  subscribed  to  by  the  whole 
mass  of  those  outside  the  Jewish  community  who 
are  alive  to  the  question  at  all.  Being  the  simplest 
form  of  the  truth,  it  needs,  when  applied  to  a  highly 
complex  situation,  detailed  modification. 

This  modification  proceeds  from  three  sources : — 

First,  the  extent  of  the  Jewish  control  and  the 
extent  of  the  resentment  against  that  control  vary 
very  largely  from  one  community  to  another. 

Secondly,  the  civic  tradition  of  each  community 
in  its  treatment  of  the  Jewish  question  also  differs 
from  that  of  every  other,  though  these  various 
traditions  fall  into  certain  fairly  well-defined  groups. 

Thirdly,  the  position  is  modified  according  to 
the  presence,  in  varying  degrees  of  strength  in 
different  communities,  of  certain  international 
forces  even  more  powerful  than  the  Jews  themselves. 
The  four  principal  of  the  international  forces  are : — 

189 


190  THE  JEWS 

(1)  The  Catholic  Church; 

(2)  Islam; 

( 3)  The  forces  of  international  Capitalism ;   and 

(4)  The  international  reaction  against  it  of  the 
industrial  proletariat. 

We  must  in  the  first  line  of  this  inquiry  make  an 
important  premise.  The  fact  from  which  we 
proceed,  namely,  the  uneasy  feeling  that  the  Jews 
are  getting  control  and  the  determination  not  to 
tolerate  that  control,  will  be  denied  by  the  Jews 
themselves.  It  is  denied  sincerely — I  have  entered 
upon  too  many  discussions  with  them  and  heard 
too  many  of  their  protestations  to  doubt  that; 
and  if  the  denial  were  valid,  not  only  the  particular 
survey  I  propose  in  this  chapter,  but  the  whole 
of  the  argument  of  this  book,  would  fail.  For  if 
there  is  a  Jewish  question  to-day,  and  if  it  is  present 
in  the  acute  form  in  which  we  all  know  it  to  be 
present,  it  is  not  due  merely  to  the  contrast  and 
friction  between  the  Jews  and  their  hosts,  but 
especially  to  this  feeling  of  domination. 

But  the  Jewish  belief  in  this  matter  is  not  valid, 
sincerely  as  it  is  held.  To  the  great  majority  of 
Jews  it  will,  of  course,  seem  common- sense.  What 
has  the  unfortunate  poor  Jew  in  the  slums  of  our 
great  cities  to  do  with  controlling  the  modern 
world  ?  How  in  his  eyes  can  the  phrase  have  any 
meaning  at  all?  If  you  pass  from  him  to  the 
comparatively  small  Jewish  middle  class,  you  would 
hear  a  denial  almost  equally  vigorous.  The  Jewish 
scientist  will  tell  you  that  he  is  concerned  with  his 
researches  and  laughs  at  the  idea  of  interfering 
with  his  neighbours;  the  Jewish  historian  that 
he  is  concerned  with  his  documents,  that  nothing 
is  further  from  his  thoughts  than  interfering  with 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    191 

people  outside  his  trade ;  the  little  Jewish  shop- 
keeper will  tell  you  that  he  is  in  active  competition 
with  his  non- Jewish  neighbours  and  by  no  means 
always  successful  in  that  competition ;  the  Jewish 
lawyer  will  tell  you  that  he  is  concerned  with  the 
system  of  law  in  which  he  happens  to  be  immersed 
— the  Napoleonic  Code,  the  English  Common  Law 
or  what  not — and  that  any  idea  of  his  personally 
wanting  to  control  the  vast  non- Jewish  majority 
among  whom  he  lives  is  moonshine :    and  so  it  is. 

The  great  Jewish  banker,  though  he  is  fully 
aware  of  his  power,  would  tell  you  that  in  his 
daily  business  he  comes  up  against  forces  to  which 
he  is  subject,  and  has  competitors  who  are  at  the 
best  neutral,  and  more  commonly  hostile,  to  Israel ; 
and  even  the  man  who  is  to-day  more  powerful — 
if  that  be  possible — than  the  Jewish  banker,  I 
mean  the  Jewish  monopolist,  and  especially  the 
Jewish  monopolist  in  metal,  though  he  would  be 
extremely  annoyed  to  have  the  extent  of  his  control 
exposed,  will  feel  that  it  is  due  to  his  superior 
abilities  and  in  no  way  designed  for  mastery. 

All  these  individual  replies  are  true ;  but  if  you 
make  of  them  a  composite  and  general  reply,  if  you 
put  it  as  a  reply  of  all  Israel  to  all  the  world  outside, 
crying,  "  I  have  no  desire  for  supremacy ;  I  never 
act  in  such  a  fashion  that  my  domination  can  be 
felt  or  shall  increase;  the  motive  is  not  present, 
even  subconsciously,  among  my  people  " — then  that 
general  reply  would  be  false. 

In  point  of  fact  the  Jew  has  collectively  a  power 
to-day,  in  the  white  world,  altogether  excessive. 
It  is  not  only  an  excessive  power,  it  is  inevitably 
Si  corporate  power  and,  therefore,  a  semi- organized 
power.     It  is  not  only  excessive  and  in  the  main 


192  THE  JEWS 

organized,  it  was,  until  the  recent  reaction  began, 
a  rapidly  increasing  power — and  most  people 
believe  it  to  be  still  increasing.  To  that  the  whole 
world  outside  the  Jewish  community  will  testify. 

The  criterion  by  which  we  may  judge  whether 
any  form  of  power  is  irritant  to  those  whom  it 
affects  is  not  the  testimony  of  those  who  exercise 
the  power,  but  the  testimony  of  those  over  whom 
it  is  exercised.  There  never  was  a  tyranny  in  the 
world,  not  even  one  of  those  personal  tyrannies 
(which  have  been  so  much  more  highly  organized 
and  so  much  more  direct  than  this  power  of  the 
Jews) ,  there  never  has  been  a  despotism  in  history, 
which  would  not  tell  you  that  it  was  accidental,  or 
necessary,  or,  in  any  case,  innocent  of  any  motive  of 
oppression.  And  history  universally  replies :  "To 
judge  that^  you  must  ask  those  who  felt  the  pressure ; 
not  those  who  exercised  it." 

Now  those  who  feel  the  pressure  in  the  matter 
we  are  now  examining  are  unanimous.  They  differ 
in  the  degree  of  their  resentment  from  those  to 
whom  the  thing  is  so  intolerable  that  they  are 
already  in  active  revolt  against  it,  to  those  who 
feel  it  merely  as  a  distant  though  an  approaching 
discomfort.  But  everybody  feels  it  in  some  degree. 
It  is  a  universal  sensation  running  throughout  the 
nerves  of  the  modern  world  and  it  is  growing  too 
fast  in  degree  and  extent  to  be  ignored. 

I  have  already  quoted  the  effect  upon  those 
hundreds  of  educated  men  taken  into  the  temporary 
Civil  service  during  the  late  war,  when  they  found, 
holding  the  locked  gate  of  one  monopoly  after 
another,  the  international  Jew.  His  control  of 
finance  needs  no  discussion.  If  the  individual 
banker  or  financier  is  not  aware  of  it,  the  most  of 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    193 

those  who  are  affected  are  acutely  aware  of  it. 
Men  exaggerate  in  giving  it  a  sort  of  conscious 
personality,  but  they  certainly  do  not  exaggerate 
when  they  point  to  its  effects.  The  Jew  must 
remember,  what  it  may  be  difficult  for  him  to  accept 
and  what  is  certainly  true,  that  not  only  is  his  domi- 
nation very  bitterly  resented  but  that  his  presence 
in  any  position  of  control  whatsoever  is  odious  to 
the  race  among  which  he  moves.  Everybody  feels 
that  about  any  form  of  alien  control,  much  more 
do  they  feel  it  about  that  form  which  they  instinc- 
tively know  to  be  most  alien  of  all.  Every  one 
has  noticed  this  control  exercised  in  the  form  of 
keeping  silence  upon  what  it  was  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  Israel  to  have  known ;  in  the  form  of  the 
advertising  of  what  it  was  to  the  advantage  of  Israel 
to  have  advertised ;  in  the  form  of  the  giving  and 
withholding  of  credit;  in  the  form  of  attack  in 
the  Press  against  nations  with  whom  Israel  had  a 
quarrel  and  the  defence  in  the  Press  of  those  (they 
have  now  almost  disappeared)  upon  whom  Israel, 
in  the  immediate  past,  relied  for  defence.  And 
everybody  has  discovered — what  is  not  unjust, 
indeed,  what  is  inevitable,  but  what  is  none  the 
less  a  source  of  exasperation' — the  solidarity  of  the 
Jewish  race  where  the  interests  of  any  member  of 
it  were  concerned.  ^ 

But  if  the  thing  were  felt  everywhere  as  acutely 
and  as  consciously  as  it  is  felt  in  special  groups 
to-day — as  it  is  felt,  for  instance,  in  one  particular 
section  of  English  opinion  already  represented  in  the 

^  Except,  of  course,  an  outlawed  member.  The  case  of 
Dr.  Levy  turned  out  of  this  country  by  his  compatriots  in 
the  Government  for  having  written  unfavourably  of  the  Moscow 
Jews  will  be  fresh  in  every  one's  memory. 

O 


194  THE  JEWS 

Press,  is  felt  in  a  wider  section  of  French  opinion, 
and  in  a  still  wider  section  of  Polish  opinion — then 
the  matter  would  be  simple.  We  could  then  say 
that  an  issue  of  the  clearest  kind  had  arisen,  and 
forbid  a  small  alien  minority  to  decide  the  destinies 
of  those  among  whom  it  lives  and  of  whom  it  is 
not.  The  answer  would  be  obvious,  and  the  only 
difficulty  would  be  how  the  Jewish  control  might 
be  lessened  without  grievous  injustice  to  innocent 
individuals. 

But  the  thing  is  not  so  felt.  It  is  modified,  as 
I  have  said,  by  the  varying  degrees  of  intensity 
in  which  it  is  recognized  and  by  the  other  inter- 
national forces  which  come  into  play. 

If  we  consider  the  varying  political  traditions 
and  the  varying  international  forces,  if  we  examine 
the  world's  national  groups,  we  shall  find  something 
like  this:  In  the  vast  body  of  Kussia  a  position 
most  paradoxical.  For  years  the  Jew  was  every- 
where openly  attacked  and  hated  in  those  parts 
of  the  Eussian  Empire  where  he  was  allowed  to 
live  in  large  numbers.  These  were  nowhere  within 
Russia  proper  but  upon  the  western  outskirts  of 
that  empire,  within  what  was  once  the  old  Polish 
kingdom  and  largely  within  what  is  now  the  restored 
Republic  of  Poland.  But  the  Russian  traditional 
antagonism  to  the  Jew  changed  in  a  few  weeks  of 
chaos  to  something  not  opposite  but  novel  and 
different.  The  Russian  allowed  a  prodigious  revolu- 
tion to  be  made  by  the  Jews,  he  accepted  the  loot 
of  that  revolution  which  the  Jew  secured  to  him; 
he  has  submitted  wholly  in  the  towns,  partly  in 
the  country,  to  a  tyranny  exercised  by  Jews  ever 
since  that  complete  reversal  of  his  national  history, 
now  four  years  old. 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    195 

The  external  political  power  of  what  was  once 
the  Russian  Empire  has  disappeared.  The  Jews 
have  killed  it.  But  the  great  mass  of  Russian 
humanity  remains  strongly  affected  by  this  curious 
change.  Where  popular  instinct  works  untram- 
melled the  old  and  violent  passionate  antagonism 
between  the  Russian  and  the  Jew  survives.  You 
see  it  in  the  hotch  potch  of  the  Ukraine,  the 
inhabitants  of  which,  in  spite  of  all  theories,  are  of 
Russian  race  and  tradition,  and  the  central  town 
of  which  is  the  sacred  region  of  Russia  as  a  member 
of  Christendom.  There,  for  all  the  Jewish  Com- 
mittees with  large  towns  under  their  complete 
control,  there  have  been  repeated  revolts.  But 
in  the  greater  part  of  European  Russia  at  least, 
and  in  much  of  what  was  once  the  Asiatic  Empire, 
the  Jews  hold  what  is  left  of  the  Executive 
government. 

So  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  very  imperfect 
accounts  which  reach  us  ( for  nowhere  is  the  weapon 
of  secrecy  more  ruthlessly  used),  the  mass  of  the 
Russians,  that  is,  the  peasantry,  are  in  two  minds. 
To  the  action  of  the  Jewish  despotism  in  the  town 
they  are  indifferent,  but  to  his  early  attempts 
against  themselves  they  were  bitterly  opposed. 
They  have  suffered  at  his  hands  and  they  thought 
him  a  tyrant.  But  the  Jew  seems  to  have  dropped 
this  interference  and  the  Russian  soil  to  have  settled 
down  as  a  peasant  proprietary.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  was  a  revolution  guided  by  those  same 
Jewish  Committees  which  secured  the  peasant  in 
the  possession  of  his  land.  The  Russian  peasant 
has  always  regarded  the  land  as  his  own.  He 
had,  I  understand,  regarded  that  odd,  pedantic 
measure,  "  The  Liberation  of  the  Serfs,"  as  only 


196  THE  JEWS 

another  name  for  the  robbing  him  of  his  land; 
and  when  the  organization  of  Kussian  society  dis- 
solved in  the  strain  of  war,  he  poured  over  the  great 
estates  and  took  back  what  he  thought  was  his 
own. 

For  the  strange  Jewish  conception  of  Commun- 
ism, a  million  miles  removed  from  our  European 
racial  instincts  and  our  high  civilized  traditions,  the 
Kussian  peasant  could  have  nothing  but  a  bewil- 
dered contempt.  None  the  less  he  was  conscious 
that  the  Jewish  revolution  had  permitted  him,  if 
not  to  take  the  land  (he  did  that  himself),  at  least 
to  hold  it ;  and  the  revolution  is  indistinguishable 
from  the  Jewish  control  of  the  towns. 

Within  the  towns,  again  (our  information  is 
most  imperfect  and  I  can  only  piece  together  what 
eye-witnesses  have  told  me),  although  the  Jew  is, 
of  course,  individually  hated,  yet  his  control  does 
stand  for  certain  things  which  the  mass  of  the 
people  still  support.  He  organized  the  resentment 
of  the  poor  against  the  rich.  He  erected  before 
their  eyes  the  pleasing  spectacle  of  a  social  revenge. 
He  carried  out,  fairly  consistently,  his  Communist 
programme,  one  aspect  at  least  of  which  is  practical 
enough;  for  the  man  that  works  with  his  hands 
finds  that  he  is  as  well,  or  better,  fed  out  of  the 
meagre  common  stock,  than  those  who  were  once 
his  masters. 

In  general  I  think  it  true  to  say  that  the  Jewish 
control  over  Christians,  if,  in  a  way,  stronger  in 
what  was  once  the  Russian  Empire  than  anywhere 
else,  is  also  there  least  resented.  I  do  not  say 
it  would  not  be  resented  if  it  were  to  excite  action 
again  against  the  peasants,  but  we  cannot  forget 
that  the  peasants  were  eager  to  fight  for  the  new 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    197 

Russian  regime  because  they  identified  it  with 
their  new  property  in  land.  The  situation  is  absurd 
enough.  Men  in  hundreds  of  thousands  willing  to 
fight  for  Communist  masters  because  by  so  doing 
they  believe  they  can  secure  themselves  in  an 
absolute  form  of  property !  But  that  is  what  the 
"  red"  army  was. 

In  that  l3elt  of  nations,  vague  in  boundary, 
which  used  to  constitute  the  Marches  of  the  East 
and  which  now  stand  between  what  was  once  the 
Russian  Empire  and  the  Germanics,  the  position 
would  seem  to  be  this. 

There  are  in  these  countries  everywhere  a  very 
large  proportion  of  Jews.  The  largest  by  far  are  in 
Lithuania  and  Galicia,  where,  of  whole  towns,  from 
a  third  to  a  half  and  sometimes  up  to  two- thirds, 
of  the  population  are  Jewish.  Very  large  also 
is  the  proportion  within  the  admitted  frontiers  of 
modern  Poland ;  very  large  in  Roumania,  and 
considerable  in  Hungary. 

In  all  these  countries  the  Jewish  problem  is 
something  quite  different  from  what  it  is  farther 
West.  The  Jews  are  in  these  countries  admittedly 
a  separate  nation.  Even  as  I  write  I  hear  the 
complaint,  sounding  strange  in  our  Western  ears, 
proffered  by  the  Polish  Jews  who  have  been  appeal- 
ing to  the  West  against  what  they  claim  to  be  the 
oppressive  practice  of  writing  them  down  as  Poles  ! 
In  Roumania  for  two  generations  it  has  been  the 
fixed  principle  of  the  State,  now  latent,  now  overt, 
but  always  acted  upon  in  social  practice,  that  the 
Jew  is  not  a  Roumanian  at  all  and  cannot  be  one. 
Of  course  he  cannot  be  one  really,  any  more  than 
he  can  be  an  Englishman,  or  a  Frenchman,  or  an 
Irishman.    (Fancy  a  Jew  an  Irishman!)     But  I 


198  THE  JEWS 

mean,  not  even  one  by  fiction  or  by  convention. 
In  Poland  the  greater  part  of  these  people  have  a 
different  language  and  all  of  them  have  a  different 
social  custom  and  a  different  life  from  the  world 
around  them.  In  Hungary,  where  the  numerical 
pressure  of  the  Jew  is  less,  there  is,  of  course,  a 
most  lively  memory  of  the  attempted  revolution 
under  Cohen  in  1918,  the  massacres  of  Hungarians, 
the  setting  up  of  an  ephemeral  Bolshevism  and  the 
necessity  of  its  suppression.  In  Bohemia  the 
pressure  is  far  less  and  in  the  Balkan  States  south  of 
the  Danube  and  the  Drave.  It  is  only  present  as 
a  pressure  of  numbers  in  the  group  of  States  which 
lie  between  the  Baltic  and  the  Black  Sea  South 
and  North  and  between  the  Russian  people  and  the 
German  people  East  and  West. 

When  we  come  to  Occidental  Europe,  in  which 
must  be  included,  though  it  is  hardly  a  true  part 
of  it,  Germany  beyond  the  Elbe ;  when  we  come 
to  the  Scandinavian  countries,  to  France,  Britain, 
Italy,  Spain,  Switzerland  and  the  Low  Countries, 
the  problem  changes.  The  numerical  proportion 
of  Jews  sinks  enormously.  Fairly  large  in  one  or 
two  Dutch  towns,  it  is  almost  insignificant  in 
Scandinavia,  and  though  we  have  had  into  the 
great  English  towns  and  to  some  extent  into  the 
northern  French  towns  (particularly  Paris)  a 
considerable  recent  influx  of  Jews,  yet  the  total 
number  of  these  people  in  the  West  remains  far, 
far  smaller  than  the  great  masses  of  the  East  of 
Europe.  The  same  is  still  more  true  of  Italy,  and, 
in  spite  of  the  absorption  of  a  great  deal  of  Jewish 
blood  in  the  past,  of  Spain. 

But  while  the  numerical  proportion  of  Jews  in 
these  western  countries  is  much  smaller,  and  while 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    199 

therefore  the  peril  of  Jewish  domination  is  very- 
different  in  forfn  from  what  it  is  farther  East,  it  is 
clearly  marked.  It  is  exercised  primarily  through 
finance ;  next  through  the  sceptical  Universities, 
the  anonymous  Press  and  the  corrupt  Parliaments, 
and,  lastly,  in  a  more  general  form,  by  the  presence 
of  institutions  which  greatly  favour  the  rise  of  the 
Jew  in  competition  with  his  hosts ;  each  favours 
international  knowledge ;  each  favours  anonymity ; 
each  still  favours  the  old  Liberal  nonsense  which 
called  itself  "  toleration"  and  was  really  an  indiffer- 
ence to  that  most  fundamental  of  all  social  motives 
— religion — save,  of  course,  where  an  exception 
is  made  to  permit  attack  upon  the  Catholic 
Church. 

Under  influence  of  this  sort,  both  sincere  and 
hypocritical,  both  generous  and  mean,  the  Jew 
acquired  in  all  the  larger  communities,  and  especially 
in  France,  Italy,  Germany  and  England,  a  power 
out  of  all  proportion  to  his  numbers,  and  I  may  add, 
without,  I  hope,  offending  any  Jewish  reader,  out 
of  proportion  to  his  abilities;  certainly  out  of 
proportion  to  any  right  of  his  to  interfere  in 
our  affairs.  It  was  a  Jew  who  produced  the 
divorce  laws  in  France,  the  Jew  who  nourished 
anti- clericalism  everywhere  in  that  country  and 
also  in  Italy ;  the  Jew  who  called  in  the  forces  of 
Occidental  nations  to  protect  his  compatriots  in 
the  East,  and  the  Jew  whose  spirit  has  so  largely 
permeated  the  Universities  and  the  Press. 

Ireland  is  an  exception.  In  Ireland  the  Jew 
(outside  the  little  industrial  corner  in  the  north-east) 
is  nobody.  And  here  it  must  be  remarked  that 
the  migrations  of  the  Jew  which  give  him  numbers 
here  for  a  time  and  afterwards  numbers  elsewhere, 


200  THE  JEWS 

in  places  where  previously  he  had  not  been  Imown ; 
which  give  him  influence  here  for  a  time,  and  sees 
it  followed  by  the  decline  of  that  influence,  do  not 
seem  to  obey  any  law  which  we  can  trace,  and 
are  certainly  not  the  product  of  any  conscious 
action.  It  is  one  of  the  strangest  phenomena  in 
history,  this  odd,  spasmodic  flood  movement  of 
the  Jewish  race.  Is  it  concerned  with  commerce  ? 
That  is  one  element  undoubtedly;  that  is  what 
explains  the  exploitation  of  England  by  Jews  after 
the  Conquest,  of  Spain  in  the  later  Middle  Ages, 
of  the  Valley  of  the  Rhine ;  but  then,  why  not  other 
commercial  centres  as  an  attraction  ?  Venice  was 
not  one,  though  the  Jew  was  well  tolerated  there ; 
nor  was  Paris  after  the  early  Middle  Ages,  and  while 
some  of  the  Dutch  towns  formed  such  centres  of 
attraction  the  Belgian  towns  did  not. 

Was  it  asylum  ?  That  would  account,  of  course, 
for  the  great  influx  of  Jews  into  mediaeval  Poland, 
but  then  why  not  into  eighteenth  century  England  ? 
Why  not  until  very  late  in  the  nineteenth  century  ? 
England,  which  gave  the  Jews  a  more  complete 
civic  position  than  he  could  find  anywhere  else 
in  the  world,  was  not  invaded  by  them.  Why  these 
very  recent  influxes  into  the  United  States,  which 
has  for  now  a  century  and  a  half  been  perfectly 
open  by  its  Constitution,  and  was  by  all  its  civic 
tradition  an  ideal  asylum  for  the  Jews  ?  Until 
quite  recent  times  the  Jew  was  hardly  known 
there,  and  to  this  day  he  is  not  known  outside  a 
few  great  cities. 

No.  There  would  seem  to  be  no  law,  or  at  least 
no  discoverable  law,  for  this  mysterious  movement, 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  Israel — but  that  is  a  digres- 
sion.    To  return  to  the  national  situations. 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    201 

If  we  leave  the  Old  World  and  turn  to  the  United 
States,  we  find  a  novel  condition  of  afl'air.s  still  in 
process  of  development  and  very  puzzling  to  the 
foreign  observer.  I  do  not  pretend  to  analyse  it 
completely  in  a  few  lines,  nor  even  accurately, 
for  I  am  dependent  upon  the  observation  of  others, 
and  the  United  States  are  so  utterly  different  from 
us  that  we  have  difficulty  in  following  their  con- 
temporary history;  but  something  of  this  sort 
would  seem  to  be  passing  there. 


In  the  United  States  the  Jews  were  present,  till 
the  last  few  years,  in  numbers  even  smaller  in 
proportion  to  the  population  than  their  numbers 
in  France,  England  and  Italy,  far  smaller  than  their 
numbers  in  what  was  formerly  the  German  Empire. 
In  the  agricultural  part  of  America,  which  is  still, 
I  believe,  one  half  of  the  population,  the  Jew  was 
almost  unknown.  You  find  him  here  and  there, 
as  a  lawyer  or  a  storekeeper,  but  that  world  was 
not  familiar  with  him  any  more  than  our  English 
country-sides  are  familiar  with  him  to-day.  With 
the  growth  of  the  great  industrial  towns,  of  course, 
the  Jew  came,  but  he  was  still  no  "  feature  in  the 
landscape."  There  was  a  certain  social  prejudice 
against  him  among  the  wealthier  classes  in  the 
East,  and — this  is  very  important — the  truth  was 
always  told  about  him.  There  was  in  America  no 
convention — the  Jew  was  always  recognized  as  a 
Jew  and  there  was  never  any  of  the  nonsense  we 
had  over  here  of  pretending  that  he  was  something 
else. 

Of  that  phenomenon  of  which  the  history  of 
Europe  is  full,  which  is  so  marked  in  the  eastern 


202  THE  JEWS 

counties  to-day  and  whicli  is  beginning  to  rise  in 
the  West,  there  is  nothing  traceable  in  the  early 
and  middle  nineteenth  century,  nor  even  till  the 
close  of  it,  in  the  United  States. 

Then  came  the  change.  It  is  a  change  which 
has  taken  place  in  the  lifetime  of  men  much  younger 
than  myself.  It  is  a  change,  I  am  told,  most  marked 
since  I  last  visited  the  United  States  more  than 
twenty  years  ago.  A  regular  and  organized  Jewish 
emigration  began  to  pour  in,  especially  from  the 
Baltic.  It  flooded  New  York,  where  it  now  forms 
probably  a  third  of  the  population ;  it  created 
Ghettoes  in  most  of  the  large  Northern  industrial 
towns,  and  all  the  phenomena  we  associate  in 
Europe  with  these  movements  began  to  show  them- 
selves. There  was  the  growth  of  the  financial 
monopoly  and  of  monopolies  in  particular  trades. 
There  was  the  clamour  for  toleration  in  the  form 
of  "  neutralizing "  religious  teaching  in  schools ; 
there  was  the  appearance  of  the  Jewish  revolution- 
ary and  of  the  Jewish  critic  in  every  tradition  of 
Christian  life.  The  Jews  went  also — as  they  usually 
do — to  the  heart  of  things,  and  the  Executive  was 
attacked.  The  last  and  apparently  the  most 
unpopular  of  the  presidents,  Mr.  Wilson,  seems  to 
have  been  wholly  in  their  hands.  Anonymity.in  the 
Press  came,  of  course.  A  very  marked  example  of 
it  is  a  journal  called  The  New  Republic,  which, 
though  it  has  but  a  small  proportion  of  Jewish 
writers  upon  it,  and  though  its  capital  is  (I  believe) 
not  Jewish,  is  yet  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the 
organ  of  the  Jewish  intellectuals,  always  joins  in 
the  boycott  of  any  news  unfavourable  to  European 
Jews,  always  joins  in  the  clamour  for  anything 
favourable  to  them,  and  in  general  adheres  to  the 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    203 

Jewish  side,  like  the  Hutnatiite  in  Paris,  or,  let  us 
say,  The  New  Statesman  in  England. 

But  the  novel  presence  in  the  United  States  of 
this  phenomenon  with  which  in  the  west  of  Europe 
we  have  now  been  familiar  for  a  long  time,  provides 
a  more  direct  and  a  very  different  kind  of  reaction 
from  what  it  has  among  us.  This  reaction  against 
Jewish  powers  was  not  (to  use  a  Stock  Exchange 
metaphor)  "sticky."  There  was  no  hesitation; 
there  were  no  uneasy  patches  of  silence.  The 
Jewish  question  was  discussed  from  the  moment 
it  was  first  felt  and  to-day  it  is  discussed  beyond 
all  others.  Of  political  topics  I  have  found  it  the 
first  in  the  conversation  of  the  Americans  who 
have  visited  Europe  since  the  War  and  with  whom 
I  have  discussed  the  affairs  of  their  country.  It 
ranges,  as  that  reaction  always  does,  from  the  wildest 
Anti-Semitism  to  strong  and  open  defence  of 
the  Jewish  position,  not  only  by  Jews  but  by  the 
very  small  minority  of  their  admirers  outside  the 
Jewish  community,  especially  among  the  wealthy. 
The  characteristic  of  the  whole  thing  in  the  United 
States  is  that  it  is  only  just  beginning.  It  is  capable 
of  becoming  one  of  those  sudden  growths  of  which 
the  past  history  of  the  Republic  has  made  us 
familiar,  and  indeed  it  is  too  early  yet  to  judge,  even 
on  the  largest  lines,  what  forms  it  may  not  take. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  there  is  behind  the  reaction 
against  the  Jew  in  that  country  a  growing  intensity 
of  feeling  with  which  we,  as  yet,  in  Western  Europe, 
for  all  the  advance  we  have  made  in  the  matter, 
are  unfamiliar.  If  a  test  be  required,  contrast 
the  silence  about  the  Jews  in  '96,  during  Bryan's 
great  attack  upon  the  gold  standard,  with  the  work 
of  Mr.  Ford  and  all  that  he  stands  for  to-day ! 


204  THE  JEWS 

The  rest  of  the  world  is  either  of  Islam  or  heathen. 
In  the  heathen  world,  so  far,  the  Jew  has  little 
place.  He  has  a  strong  grip  on  India,  of  course, 
but  only  through  the  British  Raj,  not  through  the 
native  population;  and  in  China,  except  as  a 
quasi- European  merchant,  he  has  no  power  at  all; 
neither  has  he  over  the  strong  and  organized 
nationality  of  Japan. 

Such  are  the  degrees,  very  roughly,  of  the 
problem ;  such  the  differences  of  its  quality  in  the 
various  national  groups  to-day.  Of  these  the  two 
most  interesting  states  of  the  problem  by  far,  be- 
cause they  are  changing  with  the  greatest  rapidity, 
are  found  in  France,  in  England  and  in  the  United 
States. 

I  have  said  that  the  second  modifying  condition 
was  the  difference  of  civic  traditions  of  the  various 
nations.  Here  again  you  have  a  differentiation 
from  East  to  West.  But  within  it  a  differentiation, 
ultimately  due  to  religion,  from  North  to  South. 
In  Russia  there  was  never  any  tradition  of  keeping 
silence  upon  the  Jew,  or  of  respecting  the  Jew 
at  all.  He  was,  until  the  recent  revolution, 
the  national  enemy,  and  there  was  the  end  of  it. 
Similarly  in  Poland,  Roumania  and  the  vaguer 
populations  of  their  borders,  and  even  in  the  old 
Hungary,  the  Jew  was  talked  of  openly  as  belonging 
to  a  separate  nationality  and,  on  the  whole,  a 
hostile  one. 

But  as  one  got  west  another  spirit  emerged, 
another  tradition.  It  was  "  the  thing"  to  treat 
the  Jew  as  a  citizen.  This  fashion  was  weaker  in 
the  Germanics  than  in  the  Low  Countries,  France, 
or  England ;  it  was  everywhere  present  west  of  the 
Elbe. 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    205 

It  was  a  tradition  flowing  from  two  sources: 
the  commercial  and  protcstant  England  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  sceptical  France  of  the 
eighteenth.  The  Jew  (according  to  this  spirit) 
merited  special  protection  and  special  respect.  He 
must  be  protected  and  respected  even  in  his  passion 
for  secrecy;  so  that  at  last  the  mere  mention  of 
his  existence  in  the  cultivated  and  directing  classes 
of  the  west  became  something  of  an  oddity. 

From  this  spirit  proceeded  the  Liberal  fiction  or 
convention  which  I  dealt  with  in  the  second  chapter 
of  this  book.  It  was  clinched,  it  was  given  per- 
manent form,  by  the  enthusiasm  and  severe  doc- 
trine of  the  French  Republicans,  which  arose  at  a 
moment  when  Israel  was  regarded  as  a  religion 
and  its  national  quality  was  forgotten.  Since  all 
religion  was  thought  to  be  dying,  since,  further,  an 
enthusiasm  had  arisen  against  almost  any  religion 
which  exercised  civic  power  (notably  the  Catholic 
Church),  this  Jewish  religion,  formerly  regarded  as 
inimical  to  the  State,  or  at  any  rate  separate  from 
it,  was  naturally  accorded  a  special  privilege.  That 
strange  system  arose,  the  death  of  which  we  are 
now  watching  after  its  brief  life  of  somewhat  more 
than  a  century,  whereby  the  Jew  was  permitted 
to  wear  the  mask  of  nationalities  other  than  his 
own,  and  to  function  everywhere  as  though  he  were 
a  citizen,  not  of  Israel,  but  of  the  nation  in  which 
he  chanced  to  find  himself. 

Against  this  attitude  arose  at  last  the  powerful 
plea  of  nationalism.  In  England,  as  we  shall  see 
in  the  next  chapter,  this  plea  was  less  strong  than 
elsewhere,  because  the  interests  of  international 
Jewish  finance  and  of  British  commerce  were  for 
so  long  nearly  identical.     In  Italy,  where  the  Jew 


206  THE  JEWS 

was  naturally  closely  connected  with  the  nationalist 
movement  on  account  of  its  antagonism  to  the 
Papacy,  national  feeling  clashed  little  with  the 
anomaly  of  the  Jew.  But  in  France,  especially 
after  the  defeat  of  1 870,  the  contrast  became  stronger 
and  stronger,  just  as  it  is  strengthening  to-day  in 
Germany  after  the  defeat  of  1918. 

It  was  that  clash  between  the  "  city"  of  Israel 
and  the  other  "cities"  in  which  we  Europeans 
function,  to  which  allusion  has  been  made  on  a 
former  page.  It  would  be  very  convenient,  no 
doubt,  to  the  "  City  "  of  Israel  if  all  other  "  cities  " 
disappeared  and  left  an  open  field  for  Jewish 
operations.  But  they  do  not  propose  to  disappear ; 
and  though  our  devotion  to  them  may  seem  inexplic- 
able to  the  Jew,  he  must  accept  it  as  a  permanent 
force ;  for  the  patriotism  of  the  European  will  not 
weaken. 

In  the  United  States  this  Liberal  tradition  or 
convention,  this  conception  that  the  Jew  must  be 
treated  as  a  full  citizen,  was  far  stronger  even  than 
it  was  in  the  West  of  Europe.  It  was  in  the  very 
soul  of  the  Constitution,  and,  what  is  more  impor- 
tant, in  the  very  soul  of  the  people.  For  such  a 
spirit  was  nourished  not  only  in  doctrine  but  in 
practice  by  the  appearance,  in  vast  quantities,  of 
immigrants  from  many  different  countries,  all  of 
whom  were  absorbed  in  and  merged  by  the  Ameri- 
can spirit.  If  ever  there  was  a  field  in  which  the 
false  conception  that  a  Jew  could  be  a  Jew  and 
at  the  same  time  the  full  citizen  of  another  nation, 
that  field  was  the  United  States  of  America.  Yet 
it  is  there  that  the  problem  is  now  reaching  its 
most  acute  form ;  and  the  reason  is  that  side  by 
side  with  this  strong  civie  tradition  there  goes  a 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    207 

complete  freedom  of  speech  and  a  very  active 
public  opinion.  The  reality  became  too  much  for 
theory  and  the  Jew  was  recognized  as  something 
apart.  He  will  never  fall  into  the  background 
again. 

There  remain  to  be  considered  the  international 
forces  which  modify  this  general  truth  that  the 
quarrel  with  the  Jew  is  a  quarrel  with  his  increasing 
control  over  our  affairs. 

Those  international  forces  are  Religion — Islam 
and  the  Catholic  Church — the  force  of  Modern 
Capitalism,  and  the  Reaction  against  that  force  of 
the  Industrial  Proletariat,  the  Reaction  summed  up 
in  the  term  Socialism.     All  four  are  international. 

The  position  of  the  Jew  in  Islam  can  be  simply 
defined.  In  Islam  he  is  treated  with  less  method 
and  therefore  with  less  continued  oppression  than 
in  Christendom,  but  always  and  permanently  as 
something  base  and  inferior,  save  in  a  few  rare 
moments  when  he  has  the  favour  of  particular 
rulers  or  is  necessary  to  some  special  society,  or 
is  admired  in  a  moment  of  intellectual  brilliance. 

Normally  the  Jew  in  Islam  is  an  outcast.  I 
know  very  well  that  the  game  is  played  of  pretend- 
ing that  Islam  is  in  some  way  kinder  to  him  than 
we  are.  It  is  but  a  game :  the  playing  of  one  party 
against  another — of  Islam  against  Christendom — 
by  Israel,  which  is  of  neither.  In  Islam  his  superior 
position  in  Christendom  is  equally  famed.  History 
is  too  strong  for  such  pretences.  All  the  history  of 
Islam,  all  the  social  spirit  of  Islam,  to  which  there 
are  countless  witnesses  to-day,  give  the  same  verdict 
about  the  general  treatment  of  the  Jew  in  that 
society. 

So  it  was  in  independent  Islam.     But  Islarn, 


208  THE  JEWS 

politically  controlled  to-day  by  tlie  Western  Chris- 
tian powers,  is  another  matter.  Under  that  un- 
stable state  of  affairs  (no  one  can  say  how  long  it 
will  last ;  the  conflict  between  Islam  and  Christen- 
dom seems  eternal  and  the  rise  and  fall  of  that  tide 
is  indefinitely  successive)  the  problem  takes  on 
quite  another  shape.  France  and  England  appear 
in  Islam  as  the  artificial  supporters  of  the  Jew. 

Until  quite  lately  it  was  the  French  who  bore 
the  worst  odium  of  this  in  the  eyes  of  the  Moham- 
medans. Under  the  French  the  Jews  in  North 
Africa  were  often  given  a  special,  a  superior  position, 
which  was  an  insult  to  every  Mohammedan  and 
which  is  still  an  insult  to  him.  It  is  the  weakest 
point  of  the  French  regime.  In  Algeria  the  Ghetto 
Jew  may  vote.  The  Arab  may  not.  Even  in 
Morocco,  where  things  have  been  done  more  wisely 
than  in  Algiers,  the  difficulty  is  felt.  How  are 
you  to  treat  a  Jew  differently  in  Morocco  from  the 
way  in  which  he  is  treated  in  France  ?  He  is 
common  to  the  two  countries.  If  you  treat  him  as 
if  he  were  French,  and  therefore  a  member  of  the 
governing  power,  what  of  the  pride  of  those  lords 
of  the  Atlas  and  of  Fez  ? 

In  the  vastly  larger  field  of  Mohammedan  control 
exercised  by  Britain,  which,  directly  and  indirectly, 
is  ten  times  that  of  France,  there  was  until  lately  less 
of  this  friction ;  but  the  tables  have  been  turned, 
and  to-day  it  is  Britain  which  stands  to  the  Moham- 
medan as  the  thruster-in  of  the  Jew.  It  began 
with  the  support  of  Jewish  finance  in  Egypt;  it 
went  on  with  the  extended  control  over  Indian 
commerce  by  Jews;  it  continued  in  the  control 
of  Indian  currency  by  Jews.  It  has  ended  in  the 
grotesque  appointment  to  the  Indian  Viceroyalty 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    209 

and  the  extraordinary  experiment  of  Palestine. 
To-day,  at  the  moment  in  which  I  write,  there 
is  no  doubt  on  the  matter  whatsoever :  From  Rabat 
on  the  Atlantic  to  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  the  Western 
Powers  are  regarded  as  the  agents  of  a  Jewish 
intrusion  which  is  intolerable  to  Islam.  And 
whereas  the  chief  blame  lay,  until  quite  a  few 
years  ago,  upon  the  French,  to-day  it  lies  upon 
the  British  Government. 

The  role  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  debate 
between  the  Jews  and  Christendom  is  the  most 
discussed,  the  worst  understood,  of  any  point 
connected  with  the  general  problem.  But  it  is 
capable  of  simple  definition.  Wherever  the  Catho- 
lic Church  is  powerful,  and  in  proportion  as  it  is 
powerful,  the  traditional  principles  of  the  civiliza- 
tion of  which  it  is  the  soul  and  guardian  will  always 
be  upheld.  One  of  these  principles  is  the  sharp 
distinction  between  the  Jew  and  ourselves.  The 
Rationalist  would  say  that  this  distinction  was 
racial,  and  that  it  only  found  religious  expression 
on  account  of  its  racial  reality.  His  opponent 
would  say  that  the  origin  of  the  quarrel  was  mainly 
religious ;  that  it  was  a  difference  in  religious  tradi- 
tion which  formed  the  contrast  between  the  Jew 
and  Christendom.  The  former  can  cite  as  evidence 
the  violent  original  contrast  between  the  Roman 
Empire  and  the  Jew,  the  latter  the  truth  that 
religion,  philosophy,  is  the  formative  force  in 
every  human  society. 

But  whichever  theory  you  adopt,  the  fact  is  there. 
The  Catholic  Church  is  the  conservator  of  an  age- 
long European  tradition,  and  that  tradition  will 
never  compromise  with  the  fiction  that  a  Jew  can 


210  THE  JEWS 

be  other  than  a  Jew.  Wherever  the  Catholic 
Church  has  power,  and  in  proportion  to  its  power, 
the  Jewish  problem  will  be  recognized  to  the  full. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  never  has  been  and 
never  will  be,  or  can  be,  admission  by  Catholic 
morals  of  warfare  against  the  Jew.  Those  morals 
are  plain.  That  doctrine  has  been  defined  over  and 
over  again  and  acted  upon  throughout  history.  If 
indirect  hostilities  are  opened  against  the  majority 
by  a  minority  in  its  midst,  they  may  be  repressed 
and  punished.  Still  more  important,  insincere  and 
pretended  conversion,  used  as  a  cloak,  may  be 
repressed  and  punished.  But  though  a  com- 
munity has  the  right  to  determine  its  own  life, 
and  (if  it  think  it  possible)  even  to  eliminate  (with 
justice,  not  with  cruelty,  violence  or  injustice  in 
any  form)  an  alien,  a  hostile  minority;  yet  that 
minority  has  its  own  right  to  live,  if  not  there, 
then  elsewhere.  It  has  its  right — once  it  is  rooted 
and  traditional — to  its  own  convictions,  to  its 
own  tradition.  If  you  allow  it  to  live  among  you, 
you  must  allow  it  to  live  its  own  life  save  where 
that  life  threatens  yours.  The  Catholic  Church  will 
always  maintain  reality,  including  the  reality  of  that 
sharp  distinction  between  the  Jew  and  his  hosts. 

The  opponent  of  the  Catholic  Church  will  tend, 
other  things  being  equal,  to  support  the  Jew, 
because,  under  that  distinction,  the  Jew  may  find 
himself  ill  at  ease.  The  whole  Protestant  tradition 
of  the  North  was  for  more  than  300  years  favour- 
able to  the  Jew,  partly  indeed  on  account  of  its 
reliance  upon  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  its  absorption 
in  the  inspired  Jewish  folk-lore,  but  more  because 
the  alliance  with  the  Jew  was  an  alliance  against  the 
Catholic  Church.     Strong  traces  of  that  spirit  still 


POSITION  IN  WORLD  AS  A  WHOLE    211 

remain.  What  has  warred  against  it  has  been  the 
sheer  necessity  in  every  country,  Catholic  or 
Protestant,  Liberal  or  anti- Liberal,  to  preserve 
society  against  what  each  began  to  feel  as  a  disrup- 
tive and  an  alien  domination. 

There  remain  the  two  novel  forces — Modern 
Capitalism,  and,  protesting  against  it,  its  victim, 
the  Modern  Industrial  Proletariat. 

A  few  years  ago  anyone  would  have  said  that 
the  opposition  to  the  Jew  was  an  opposition  to 
capitalism  alone ;  the  Jew  was  the  representative 
of  capitalism,  and  Jewish  finance  was  the  particular 
aspect  of  Jewish  power  in  which  that  power  was 
universally  hated.  But  we  have  seen  all  that 
change.  To-day  the  strongest  force  against  the 
Jew  is  on  the  other  side.  It  is  mainly  aroused,  not 
by  the  fear  of  capitalist  forces,  but  by  the  fear  of 
revolutionary  forces. 

I  make  bold  to  say  that  when  the  feeling  against 
the  Jew  comes  to  the  point  of  action,  the  Jew  will 
necessarily,  and  in  self-defence,  fall  back  upon  the 
leadership  of  the  proletariat  against  industrial 
capitalism.  He  will — he  must,  from  mere  instinct, 
quite  apart  from  calculation — use  the  line  of  cleav- 
age which  divides  a  society  hostile  to  him.  He  will 
rely  on  the  line  of  cleavage  driven  by  the  vast 
modern  quarrel  between  the  few  possessors  in  the 
modern  industrial  world  and  their  victims,  the 
exploited  millions. 

So  put,  the  opportunity  of  the  Jew,  if  he  be  driven 
to  extremities  to  raise  an  army  in  his  defence, 
seems  a  great  opportunity  enough.  It  would 
seem  easy  for  him  to  deflect  all  animosity  against 
himself  into  animosity  against  the  rich — safe- 
guarding, of  course  (as  he  has  done  in  Russia), 


212  THE  JEWS 

tlie  Jewish  rich.  But  we  must  remember  three 
formidable  conditions  which  weaken  that  oppor- 
tunity. 

The  first  condition  is  this :  The  industrial  millions 
are  still  quite  a  small  minority  and  will  probably 
in  the  future  be  an  even  smaller  minority  of  the 
civilized  white  world.  The  war  dealt  them  a  heavy 
blow.  The  fact  that  the  industrial  proletariat  is 
a  town  population,  and  therefore  less  and  less 
productive,  is  another  cause  of  weakness;  their 
decline  in  health  another.  The  fact  that  indus- 
trial capitalism  depends  upon  the  machine  being 
kept  going,  and  that  its  serfs  are  less  and  less  will- 
ing to  keep  the  machine  going,  is  another. 

Secondly,  the  area  (and  that  is  important) 
occupied  by  industrial  capitalism  is  but  a  very 
small  area  of  the  surface  of  the  civilized  world. 

Thirdly,  the  revolt  of  the  Industrial  Proletariat, 
if  the  Jews  provoke  it,  will  be  short-lived.  Either 
it  will  be  defeated,  or  after  destroying  its  masters 
it  will,  under  Jewish  leadership,  destroy  its  own 
powers  of  production,  as  in  Russia. 

When  the  fury  is  exhausted,  in  a  very  short 
time  the  Jewish  problem  will  reappear. 

The  proletarian  battle  may  rage  intensely,  but  it 
will  be  far  from  universal,  and  will  not  be  sufficient, 
I  think,  to  distract  mankind  from  that  other  cross- 
problem  of  Jew  and  non- Jew,  to  which  his  attention 
is  being  more  and  more  steadily  directed. 


THE   POSITION   OF   THE   JEWS    IN 
ENGLAND 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PRESENT  RELATION  BETWEEN  THE 
ENGLISH  STATE  AND  THE  JEWS 

The  various  nations  of  Europe  have  every  one 
of  them,  in  the  course  of  their  long  histories,  passed 
through  successive  phases  towards  the  Jew  which 
I  have  called  the  tragic  cycle.  Each  has  in  turn 
welcomed,  tolerated,  persecuted,  attempted  to 
exile — often  actually  exiled — welcomed  again,  and 
so  forth.  The  two  chief  examples  of  extremes 
in  action,  are,  as  I  have  also  pointed  out  in  an 
earlier  part  of  this  book,  Spain  and  England. 
Spaniards,  and  in  particular  the  Spaniards  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Castile,  went  through  every  phase  of 
this  cycle  in  its  fullest  form.  England  passed 
through  even  greater  extremes,  for  England 
was  the  only  country  which  absolutely  got  rid  of 
the  Jews  for  hundreds  of  years,  and  England  is 
the  only  country  which  has,  even  for  a  brief  period, 
entered  into  something  like  an  alliance  with 
them. 

Though  it  is  the  present  position  of  the  British 
State — that  is,  the  position  of  official  British 
politics  towards  the  Jew — wdth  which  we  are  con- 
cerned, it  may  be  of  service  to  introduce  the  matter 
by  a  word  upon  past  relations. 

215 


216  THE  JEWS 

The  Jewish  element  in  this  island,  whatever  it 
may  have  been  during  the  Roman  occupation,  was 
of  small  account  during  the  Dark  Ages.  Things 
changed  at  their  close  in  the  eleventh  century. 
The  Jew  is  the  camp  follower  of  each  new  economic 
movement  among  us  and  that  is  why  one  finds  him 
in  the  wake  of  the  Norman  Conquest.  Throughout 
the  economic  development  which  it  began  appears 
the  secondary  role  of  the  Jew.  Every  one  knows 
the  mediaeval  rule  of  Jewish  Status.  It  was 
established  here  as  everywhere  else  in  Christendom. 
The  Jew  was  the  King' s ;  that  is,  under  the  special 
protection  of  the  State.  If  he  were  the  subject 
of  popular  attack,  that  attack  was  an  attack  on 
the  King' s  peculiar,  and  liable  to  speedy  repression. 
The  individual  attacker  was  punished  with  special 
severity  because  the  danger  of  mass- movement  is 
always  great  where  the  populace  is  free  to  act  in 
masses  as  it  was  throughout  the  middle  ages,  and 
the  necessity  for  preventing  individual  attacks 
from  spreading  was  correspondingly  great.  Now 
and  then  the  popular  feeling  got  out  of  hand  and 
the  monarch  had  to  deal  with  numbers  which  he 
could  not  control;  but  as  a  rule  the  Jew,  especi- 
ally the  rich  Jew,  enjoyed  a  privileged  position, 
both  in  Northern  France  and  throughout  England. 
The  Jew  of  the  early  Middle  Ages  in  England 
was  normally  a  well-to-do  man  and  often  an 
exceedingly  rich  man.  Then,  as  now,  a  small 
number  of  Jews  were  much  the  richest  men  of 
their  time. 

He  had  most  of  the  finances  in  his  hands,  and 
this  immense  privilege  (which  he  has  lost),  that  he 
alone  was  allowed  to  practise  usury.  Here  we 
must  pause  a  moment  to  define  usury. 


POSITION  OF  JEWS  IN  ENGLAND    217 

Usury  then  (as  now)  signified  the  receiving  of 
interest  upon  unproductive  loans.  It  is  a  practice 
which  all  moralists  and  all  philosophers  have 
condemned  and  which  the  Church  in  particular 
condemns.  If  you  lend  money  to  a  man  for  a 
productive  purpose :  if,  for  instance,  he  is  to  buy 
a  ship  and  trade  with  the  money  you  advance, 
or  to  buy  a  farm  and  grow  produce,  then,  of  course, 
you  are  perfectly  free  to  stipulate  for  a  portion  of 
the  profit.  But  if  you  lend  the  money  for  a  purpose 
not  directly  productive,  as,  for  instance,  to  a 
man  in  grave  necessity,  or  in  lieu  of  charity,  or 
to  build  such  a  building  as  a  church,  which  will 
not  produce  a  rent,  or  if  in  any  other  fashion  you 
lend  money  to  one  who  (to  your  knowledge)  will 
not  spend  it  in  some  reproductive  agency,  then  it 
is  immoral  to  demand  interest. 

Now  an  exception  was  made  in  mediaeval  Christ- 
endom in  favour  of  the  Jew.  He  was  allowed  to 
lend  money  at  interest,  even  in  the  most  grievous 
cases  of  necessity,  and  for  services  as  unproductive 
as  religion  or  war.  The  only  stipulation  was  that 
the  moneys  saved  from  this  lucrative  practice 
returned  to  the  Crown  (in  theory)  upon  the  death 
of  the  licensee.  In  practice  no  doubt  a  very 
large  part  remained  with  the  accumulator,  who 
during  his  lifetime  was  enjoying  the  income  he  had 
acquired  by  usury,  who  could  give  it  to  his  heirs 
while  still  living,  and  could  use  opportunities  for 
secret  investment,  or  pass  it  to  the  custody  of 
others  throughout  international  Jewry.  But  liquid 
sums  left  by  him,  the  product  of  his  usury,  returned 
to  the  Crown  upon  his  death.  This  was  a  great 
advantage  to  the  Crown,  not  only  in  protecting 
the  Jew  from  the  native  hostility  of  his  alien  hosts 


218  THE  JEWS 

(and  particularly  of  the  populace),  but  in  giving 
him  that  great  privilege — a  monopoly. 

The  rate  of  interest  was  enormous.  It  varied 
from  nearly  50  per  cent  to  over  80  per  cent.  When 
Jews  lent  money  on  security  the  King  was  party 
to  the  safe  custody  of  the  security,  and  their  privi- 
lege extended  so  far  that  they  were  exempt  from 
the  common  law,  and  a  case  between  an  English- 
man and  his  Jewish  creditor  could  only  be  tried 
by  a  mixed  jury  in  which  the  Jew's  own  com- 
patriots were  present  in  equal  numbers  with  the 
English. 

All  during  the  Angevin  period  Jewish  financial 
domination  continued,  up  to  the  end  of  the  twelfth 
century  and  even  into  the  beginning  of  the  thir- 
teenth. But  with  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  for  some  reason  of  which  I  have  never 
seen  a  sufficient  historical  analysis  and  of  which, 
perhaps,  the  full  causes  have  been  lost,  the  Jewish 
power  began  to  decline  very  rapidly,  so  far  as 
England  was  concerned. 

And  here  it  may  be  noted  that  the  misfortunes 
of  the  Jews  in  any  country  never  begin  until  their 
financial  position  is  shaken.  As  long  as  they  are 
the  financial  masters  of  the  Government  they  are 
protected ;  but  woe  to  them  when  they  begin  to 
lose  their  financial  power !  Then  there  is  no  longer 
any  reason  for  supporting  them  either  on  the  part  of 
the  governing  classes  in  general  or  of  the  Executive 
in  particular.  Popular  passion  is  let  loose  and 
disaster  follows. 

At  any  rate,  the  thirteenth  century  saw  in 
England  a  rapid  decline  of  Jewish  financial  power 
and  at  the  same  time  a  rapid  rise  of  official  ani- 
mosity towards  them.     They  got  poorer  and  poorer 


POSITION  OF  JEWS  IN  ENGLAND    219 

as  the  century  proceeded.  Their  activities  were 
at  the  same  time  more  and  more  restricted.  They 
had  lent  money  largely  upon  land  and  yet,  in  the 
public  interest,  were  at  last  forbidden  to  foreclose 
upon  it.  The  final  step  came  when  their  special 
licence  to  practise  usury  was  withdrawn  by  Edward 
I  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  reign;  and  at  last,  in 
1290,  after  increasing  severities,  they  were  all 
expelled  the  country  under  penalty  of  death. 

The  unhappy  people,  already  reduced  by  two 
generations  of  falling  fortune,  were  hurried  out  of 
the  country,  carrying,  by  permission,  their  money 
and  movables.  They  were  protected,  indeed,  at 
the  ports  by  the  royal  officers,  who  even  paid  the 
passage  of  the  indigent  among  them;  but  they 
were  plundered  at  sea  and  some  even  murdered. 
The  murderers  were  punished,  but  the  memory 
of  the  persecution  remained  in  the  Jews'  mind  and 
England  became  a  natural  object  of  their  hate. 
The  Jewish  community  expelled  by  the  English 
was  surprisingly  small,  not  17,000,  and  suggests  the 
historical  truth  that  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  indeed 
until  quite  modern  times,  the  Jewish  community 
in  Northern  France  and  England  was  a  community 
of  people  in  the  main  well-to-do.  It  so  remained 
until  quite  modern  times. 

There  followed  three  and  a  half  centuries  and 
more  during  which  England  was  the  one  example 
in  Europe  of  a  State  that  would  not  tolerate  the 
Jews  upon  any  terms  whatsoever.  There  cer- 
tainly remained  throughout  this  time,  or  at  any 
rate  visited  the  island,  not  a  few  of  what  the  Jews 
themselves  called  "  Crypto-Jews,"  that  is,  Jews 
who  outwardly  deny  their  nationality  and  practise 
our  religion  for  the  purpose  of  private  gain.     These, 


220  THE  JEWS 

when  they  could  defeat  the  law  successfully,  re- 
mained within  the  British  seas.  But  their  effect  was 
slight;  and  the  English  people  during  the  whole 
of  their  great  military  advance  in  France,  during 
the  whole  period  when  their  language  and  culture 
was  forming,  during  the  whole  great  national 
episode  of  the  Tudors  and  of  the  Reformation, 
formed  the  one  great  exception  out  of  all  Europe 
in  that  the  Jew  remained  unknown  to  them  and 
was  rigorously  excluded  from  their  Common- 
wealth. 

They  returned,  as  everybody  knows,  under 
Cromwell.  Their  numbers,  and  still  more  their 
wealth,  increased  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  and  concomitantly  with  this,  partly  as 
an  effect  of  it  (but  here  we  must  not  exaggerate), 
a  number  of  novel  financial  features  appeared  in 
the  English  State  each  of  which  shows  the  increased 
power  of  the  Jews.  The  institution  of  the  Bank, 
of  the  National  Debt,  of  speculation  in  Exchange 
and  in  the  fluctuation  of  stock. 

But  the  real  causes  of  that  alliance  between 
the  English  and  the  Jews  which  is  seen  in  the 
late  seventeenth  century,  which  quickened  through- 
out the  eighteenth  and  became  so  very  marked 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  was  the  cosmopolitan 
position  of  England  as  the  leading  commercial 
State.  This  it  was  which  led  to  something  like 
identity  between  the  interests  of  Israel  and  the 
interests  of  Britain,  an  identity  which  has  lasted 
so  long  that  now,  when  divergence  is  beginning 
to  appear,  it  still  seems  odd  and  novel  to  the  older 
generation  that  there  should  be  any  Jewish  action 
which  is  not  favourable  to  England.  They  cannot 
understand   what  the  new  indifference  to  Jewish 


POSITION  OF  JEWS  IN  ENGLAND    221 

interests,  let  alone  the  new  hostility  to  them,  can 
mean. 

There  were,  of  course,  many  other  causes  con- 
tributory to  the  peculiar  position  which  the  Jew 
came  to  enjoy  in  modern  England,  a  position 
which  he  has  not  yet  lost  in  external  circumstance, 
though  it  is  so  badly  shaken  morally.  There  was 
the  fact  that  England  was  the  Protestant  power 
of  the  West. 

This  religious  motive  played  a  great  part. 
Between  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  Synagogue 
there  had  been  hostility  from  the  first  century. 
In  so  far  as  it  was  possible  to  take  sides  in  that 
quarrel  it  was  natural  for  the  Protestant  power 
to  take  sides  against  the  Catholic  tradition  and 
therefore  in  favour  of  the  Jews.  Again,  the 
English  were  not  only  Protestant,  their  middle 
classes  were  steeped  in  the  reading  of  the  Old 
Testament.  The  Jews  seemed  to  them  the  heroes 
of  an  epic  and  the  shrines  of  a  religion.  You  will 
find  strong  relics  of  this  attitude  in  Provincial 
England  to  this  day.  One  should  add  a  certain 
national  distaste  for  violence,  which  feeling  was 
exasperated  by  hearing  of  the  Jewish  persecution 
abroad.  One  should  also  further  add  the  pride 
which  modern  Englishmen  take  in  the  feeling 
that  their  country  is  an  asylum  for  the  oppressed. 

Meanwhile  there  was  not,  until  quite  lately,  any 
considerable  body  of  poor  Jews  in  the  country  to 
excite  the  animosity  of  the  populace.  That  was 
an  important  negative  factor  in  bringing  the  Jew 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  English  State.  But 
with  all  these  factors  fully  considered,  it  remains 
true  that  the  main  cause  of  the  accidental  Jewish 
position  in  England  was  the  cosmopolitan  char- 


222  THE  JEWS 

acter  of  English  commerce  and  the  essentially 
commercial  character  of  the  English  State.  As 
English  export  and  English  shipping  began  to 
cover  the  globe,  the  English  financial  system  covered 
it  as  well.  London  became  after  Waterloo  the 
money  market  and  the  clearing  house  of  the 
world.  The  interests  of  the  Jew  as  a  financial 
dealer  and  the  interests  of  this  great  commercial 
polity  approximated  more  and  more.  One  may 
say  that  by  the  last  third  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury they  had  become  virtually  identical. 

Every  new  economic  enterprise  of  the  British 
State  appealed  to  the  Jewish  genius  for  commerce 
and  especially  for  negotiation  in  its  most  abstract 
form — ^finance.  Conversely,  every  Jewish  enter- 
prise, every  new  conception  of  the  Jew  in  his 
cosmopolitan  activities  (until  these  became  revolu- 
tionary) appealed  to  the  English  merchant  and 
banker. 

The  two  things  dovetailed  one  into  the  other 
and  fitted  exactly,  and  all  subsidiary  activities 
fitted  in  as  well.  The  Jewish  news  agencies  of 
the  nineteenth  century  favoured  England  in  all 
her  policy,  political  as  well  as  commercial ;  they 
opposed  those  of  her  rivals  and  especially  those  of 
her  enemies.  The  Jewish  knowledge  of  the  East 
was  at  the  service  of  England.  His  international 
penetration  of  the  European  governments  was 
also  at  her  service — so  was  his  secret  information. 
With  the  consolidation  of  the  Indian  Empire 
after  the  Mutiny  the  Jews  were  again  an  ally  from 
their  traditional  hatred  of  the  Russian  people, 
which  hatred  has  led  them  in  our  time  to  wreak 
so  awful  a  vengeance  upon  their  former  oppressors. 
The  Jew  might  almost  be  called  a  British  agent 


POSITION  OF  JEWS  IN  ENGLAND    223 

upon  the  Continent  of  Europe,  and  still  more  in  the 
Near  and  Far  East,  where  tlie  economic  power 
of  England  extended  even  more  rapidly  than  her 
political  power. 

And  the  Jew  pointed  to  the  English  State  as 
that  one  in  which  all  that  his  nation  required  of  the 
goyim  was  to  be  found.  He  here  enjoyed  a  situa- 
tion the  like  of  which  he  could  not  hope  to  enjoy 
in  any  other  country  of  the  world.  All  antagonism 
to  him  had  died  down.  He  was  admitted  to  every 
institution  in  the  State,  a  prominent  member 
of  his  nation  became  chief  officer  of  the  English 
Executive,  and,  an  influence  more  subtle  and  pene- 
trating, marriages  began  to  take  place,  wholesale, 
between  what  had  once  been  the  aristocratic 
territorial  families  of  this  country  and  the  Jewish 
commercial  fortunes. 

After  two  generations  of  this,  with  the  opening  of 
the  twentieth  century  those  of  the  great  territorial 
English  families  in  which  there  was  no  Jewish 
blood  were  the  exception.  In  nearly  all  of  them 
was  the  strain  more  or  less  marked,  in  some  of  them 
so  strong  that  though  the  name  was  still  an  English 
name  and  the  traditions  those  of  a  purely  English 
lineage  of  the  long  past,  the  physique  and  charac- 
ter had  become  wholly  Jewish  and  the  members 
of  the  family  w^ere  taken  for  Jews  whenever  they 
travelled  in  countries  where  the  gentry  had  not 
yet  suffered  or  enjoyed  this  admixture. 

Specially  Jewish  institutions,  such  as  Freemasonry 
(which  the  Jews  had  inaugurated  as  a  sort  of 
bridge  between  themselves  and  their  hosts  in  the 
seventeenth  century),  were  particularly  strong  in 
Britain,  and  there  arose  a  political  tradition,  active, 
and   ultimately   to   prove   of   great   importance, 


224  THE  JEWS 

whereby  the  British  State  was  tacitly  accepted 
by  foreign  governments  as  the  official  protector 
of  the  Jews  in  other  countries.  It  was  Britain 
which  was  expected  to  interfere,  within  the  measure 
of  her  power,  whenever,  a  persecution  of  the  Jews 
took  place  in  the  East  of  Christendom :  to  support 
the  Jewish  financial  energies  throughout  the  world, 
and  to  receive  in  return  the  benefit  of  that  con- 
nection. 

We  shall  have  a  most  imperfect  picture  of  the 
causes  which  gradually  made  the  Jews  regard 
this  country  as  their  centre  of  action  if  we  omit  one 
essential  point. 

England  was  secure. 

During  the  whole  period  which  saw  the  rise  of 
the  Jews  to  eminence  in  this  island  and  their 
ultimate  alliance  with  its  political  and  commercial 
system,  English  society  enjoyed  a  profound  peace. 
Save  for  the  petty  incidents  of  the  '15  and  '45 
(the  first  of  no  effect  south  of  the  border,  the  second 
ephemeral  and  confined  to  the  North) ,  no  hostilities 
took  place  upon  English  soil  between  the  rebellion 
of  Monmouth  under  James  II  and  the  bombarding 
of  London  by  the  Germans  from  the  air  during  the 
late  war.  There  has  been  (save  for  some  quite 
insignificant  local  riots)  complete  security  for 
property  and  especially  for  large  property.  There 
have  been  since  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  no  confiscations,  and  of  commercial  for- 
tunes none  since  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth : 
no  invasion,  no  civil  war,  and  therefore  no  loot: 
no  personal  danger  from  violence. 

Such  conditions  formed  an  environment  ideal  for 
the  permanent  establishment  and  rooting  of  Jewish 
power,  and  for  the  organization  of  a  Jewish  base. 


POSITION  OF  JEWS  IN  ENGLAND    225 

The  political  situation  reflected  itself,  as  it 
always  does,  in  literature.  The  Jew  began  to 
appear  in  English  fiction  as  an  exalted  character, 
quite  specially  removed  to  his  advantage  from 
the  mass  of  mankind.  He  is  already  a  hero  in 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  but  the  full  development  was 
much  later.  You  could  still  have  a  Jewish  villain  as 
late  as  Oliver  Twist,  but  with  writers  as  different 
as  Charles  Reade  and  George  Eliot  we  reach  a 
time  where  the  Jew  is  impeccable.  The  worst 
any  writer  dares  do  at  the  end  of  the  process  is 
to  be  silent.  The  best  is  to  flatter  the  Jewish 
type  out  of  all  knowledge.  This  singular  inter- 
lude was  in  part  due  to  the  divorce  between  litera- 
ture and  popular  feeling  in  the  middle  and  latter 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century;  at  least,  it  was 
permitted  by  that  divorce.  But  the  active  cause 
of  it  was  the  reflection  of  the  Jew's  political  posi- 
tion upon  the  mind  of  the  educated  class  as  ex- 
pressed in  its  literary  art. 

At  the  same  time  a  parallel  movement  appeared 
on  the  historical  side  of  literature.  A  convention 
arose  that  in  the  clash  between  the  Jews  and  the 
English  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  Jews  were  invari- 
ably right  and  the  English  invariably  wrong. 
Where  the  struggle  was  between  the  Jew  and  the 
non- Jew  abroad,  the  historian  exceeded  all  bounds. 
The  European  hostile  to  the  Jew  was  a  senseless 
monster,  and  the  Jew  hostile  to  the  European  was 
a  holy  victim. 

The  whole  story  of  Europe  and  of  this  country, 
in  so  far  as  it  was  affected  by  this  very  considerable 
factor,  was  distorted  through  suppression,  and 
false  emphasis  and  quite  exceptional  lying. 

The    general   reader   of   history   neither   knew 

9 


226  THE  JEWS 

what  part  the  Jewish  question  had  played  nor  the 
claims  that  could  be  advanced  for  his  own  race  in 
the  conflict.  And  as  historians  live  by  copying 
one  another,  the  legend  was  established  in  every 
school  and  college. 

At  the  end  of  the  process  the  Jews,  in  proportion 
to  their  numbers,  held  a  power  in  this  country 
beyond  anything  that  has  been  seen  in  any  other 
of  the  world.  Poland  at  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
when  that  country  was  most  nearly  comparable 
to  Britain  for  the  harbouring  and  support  of  the 
Jewish  people,  is  the  only  parallel,  and  that  a 
remote  one. 

Every  English  Government  had  (and  has)  its 
quota  of  Jews.  They  had  entered  the  diplomatic 
service  and  the  House  of  Lords ;  they  swarmed  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  in  the  Universities,  in 
all  the  Government  offices  save  the  Foreign  Office 
(and  even  there  representatives  of  the  Jewish 
nation  have  recently  entered) ;  they  were  exceed- 
ingly powerful  in  the  Press:  they  were  all-power- 
ful in  the  City.  No  custom  unsympathetic  to  their 
race,  from  the  duel  to  popular  clamour,  survived. 
They  could  boast  that  England  was  not  only  the 
country  where  no  distinction  whatever  was  made  in 
practice,  let  alone  in  law,  between  the  Jew  and 
the  native,  but  that  England  was  the  only  country 
where  the  Jew  was  always  well  received,  where 
his  natural  defects  counted  least  and  where  his 
natural  abilities  had  most  scope. 

Such  a  state  of  affairs  could  not  last.  It  was  not 
natural.  It  was  not  consonant  with  hidden  but 
deep  popular  tradition  or  with  popular  appetites; 
it  corresponded  only  to  the  mood  of  one  European 
community  in  its  wealthier  classes.     A  divergence 


POSITION  OF  JEWS  IN  ENGLAND    227 

between  tlie  cosmopolitan  finaiiciul  interests  of  tlie 
Jew  and  the  particular  national  interests  of  Britain 
was  bound  to  come.  War  on  a  large  scale,  though 
it  did  not  imperil  the  country  itself,  was  a  warning 
of  change.  It  appeared  with  the  South  African 
campaign  before  the  end  of  the  century.  The 
position  of  the  Jew  was  altered.  Some  dissatisfac- 
tion with  his  power  began  to  stir.  It  was  already 
muttering  and  beginning  to  show  itself  with  the 
rise  of  commercial  and  maritime  competition  in 
the  new  German  Empire  which,  in  its  turn,  had 
become  led,  upon  all  its  conmiercial  side,  by  Jews. 
There  was  bound,  I  say,  to  be  a  reaction  and  a 
permanent  one.  While  it  was  yet  taking  place, 
in  the  heat  of  the  Great  War,  before  it  had  reached 
the  official  world,  that  one  of  the  English  politicians 
who  was  best  fitted  to  speak  for  the  Jews,  who  was 
most  intimate  with  them  through  manifold  ties  of 
friendship  and  hospitality,  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour,  was 
chosen  to  make  the  famous  pronouncement  in 
favour  of  Zionism.  It  came  within  a  month  of 
the  great  crisis  of  the  war.  Its  object  was  to  divide 
the  general  influence  of  the  Jews  throughout  the 
world,  which  had  hitherto  been  upon  the  whole 
opposed  to  the  cause  of  the  Allies,  because, 
like  every  other  neutral,  the  Jews  were  more 
and  more  convinced,  as  the  campaigns  dragged 
on,  that  the  Central  Empires  were  certain  of 
victory. 

Though  this  was  the  motive,  the  effect  was  to  tie 
the  British  state  yet  closer  to  the  fortunes  of  Israel, 
for  here  was  England  pledged  to  support,  to  defend, 
to  act  as  a  special  protector  over,  the  peculiar 
interests  of  the  Jews,  just  where  those  interests 
would  most  challenge  the  whole  of  Christendom 


228  THE  JEWS 

and  of  Islam,  just  where  it  would  be  most  acutely 
difficult  to  confirm  Jewish  claims. 

The  declaration  in  favour  of  Zionism,  the  solemn 
pledge  of  the  forces  of  the  British  State  to  an 
exceptional  support  of  the  Jew  in  a  matter  wholly 
to  his  benefit  and  not  in  any  way  to  that  of  England, 
coming  though  it  did  after  the  climax  of  Jewish 
power  had  been  reached  and  passed,  was  the  last 
stage  of  that  long  process  of  alliance  between  the 
British  commercial  policy  and  its  ruling  classes  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  Jews  upon  the  other. 

Already,  as  I  have  said,  that  alliance  was  morally 
shaken.  The  great  influx  of  poor  Jews  had  shaken 
it.  The  mere  effect  of  time,  the  inevitable  revolt 
of  the  human  conscience  against  an  unnatural  pre- 
tence and  an  obvious  fiction,  was  bound  to  come, 
and  was  overdue.  But  although  the  alliance 
was  already  shaken,  the  English  State  remained 
officially  closely  interlocked  with  Jewry,  and  its 
last  action,  the  demand  for  the  establishment  of 
a  Jewish  State  in  Palestine,  was,  as  has  so  often 
happened  in  the  story  of  human  development,  at 
once  the  term  and  the  turning-point  of  a  process 
which  had  reached  its  conclusion;  for  it  will  be 
remarked  throughout  history  that  any  force  is 
most  expressive,  its  manifestation  of  power  most 
crude  and  most  emphatic,  in  the  perilous  interval 
after  its  real  strength  has  begun  to  decline  and  before 
its  first  open  defeat. 

But  the  problems  presented  by  this  experiment 
in  Palestine  merit  a  separate  examination.  To 
this  I  will  now  turn. 


ZIONISM 


CHAPTER  XI 

ZIONISM 

The  question  of  Zionism  has  been  discussed  from 
every  possible  aspect  save  one,  and  that  one  is  the 
only  factor  which  relates  to  the  thesis  of  this  book. 

It  has  been  argued,  as  a  purely  Jewish  matter ; 
there  has  been  debate  upon  its  justice  or  injustice 
among  the  Jews  themselves,  as  to  its  advantage  or 
disadvantage  to  their  race;  debate  among  the 
various  non- Jewish  forces  concerned  as  to  the 
advantage  or  disadvantage  it  would  be  to  them; 
debate  upon  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  the  native 
population  among  which  the  Jews  might  find  a 
home ;  debate  as  to  whether  that  home  should  be 
in  Palestine  or  elsewhere — and  so  on. 

All  these  discussions  avoid  the  ultimate  issue. 
Some  of  them,  of  course,  are  of  evident  importance 
within  the  Jewish  comnmnity,  but  so  far  as  the 
essential  problem  we  are  discussing  in  this  book  is 
concerned,  they  do  not  apply.  The  one  question 
which  is  at  issue  from  the  point  of  view  of  our 
thesis  is  this: — 

Whether  the  Zionist  experiment  will  tend  to  increase 
or  to  relax  the  strain  created  hy  the  presence  of  the 
Jew  in  the  midst  of  a  non- Jewish  world. 

That,  and  that  only,  is  our  concern,  and  from 
that  point  of  view  we  may  examine  the  theory  of 

231 


232  THE  JEWS 

Zionism  which  has  now  emerged  into  an  attempted 
practice. 

First  let  us  consider  its  necessary  general  implica- 
tions: the  implications  which  Zionism  involves, 
no  matter  where  or  how  the  experiment  were  tried. 

The  Zionist  theory  is  that  Israel  would  benefit  if 
of  its  many  millions  ( some  twelve  millions,  counting 
those  of  the  partly  Jewish  fringe,  who  are  sufficiently 
Jewish  to  make  one  with  the  race)  a  core — say  a 
tenth — were  to  have  a  fixed  territorial  "  city,"  a 
country  of  their  own,  a  habitation.  This  country, 
wherever  it  might  be  chosen,  should  be,  as  far  as 
possible,  a  purely  Jewish  State :  "as  Jewish,"  one 
of  its  exponents  has  said,  "  as  England  is  English." 

Now,  suppose  the  place  chosen  were  (to-day  we 
may  say  "  had  been")  an  empty  or  almost  unde- 
veloped country,  and  supposing  the  Jews  had  found 
that  their  own  people  could  bear  the  expense  of 
reaching  that  place  with  sufficient  capital,  and  of 
colonizing  it  in  large  numbers.  Supposing  a  small 
State  of  a  million  to  a  million  and  a  half  inhabitants 
to  be  thus  formed,  to  be  wholly  Jewish  in  character, 
and  independent  in  the  fullest  sense.  The  question 
immediately  arises :  Would  the  Jews  throughout  the 
world  be  : — 

(a)  permitted  to  regard  themselves  as  citizens  of 

that  State? 

(b)  regarded    in    any    case    as  citizens  of   that 

State,  whether  they  willed  or  no,  and  regis- 
tered as  such,  with  or  without  the  consent  of 
the  registered  person  ? 
If  not,  what  would  be  the  status  of  the  Jew  outside 
this  territorial  unit,  which  he  had  chosen  to  be 
much  more  than  a  symbol  of  his  national  unity — 
its  actual  seat  and  establishment  ? 


ZIONISM  233 

That  is  the  question  which,  so  far  as  I  have 
watched  the  discussion,  everybody  hesitates  to 
face ;  yet  that  is  the  question  which  will  liave  to 
be  faced  sooner  or  later  as  the  main  political  crux 
of  the  whole  affair. 

Observe  that  there  is  no  question  of  establishing 
a  State  wherein  the  whole  or  even  the  great  mass 
of  the  Jewish  people  shall  reside.  No  one  would 
repudiate  such  an  idea  more  vigorously  than  the 
chief  pioneers  of  Zionism.  The  great  mass  of  Jews 
would,  of  course,  ridicule  it  as  impracticable  and 
refuse  it  as  extremely  undesirable.  They  live  and 
they  desire  to  live  following  their  present  interests 
in  the  nations  among  whom  they  are  dispersed. 
They  live  and  they  desire  to  live  the  semi- nomadic 
life,  the  international  life,  which  has  become  theirs 
by  every  tradition,  and  which  one  might  now  almost 
call  instinctive  in  them.  Also  the  greater  part  of 
them  desire  to  pursue  those  careers  which  go  with 
such  a  life,  especially  the  careers  of  negotiation 
and  of  intermediary  work.  They  not  only  feel  the 
advantage  of  such  a  position,  they  also  feel  a  need 
and  appetite  for  such  a  condition. 

Whatever  form  Zionism  might  have  taken  before 
it  appeared  in  its  present  experimental  form,  what- 
ever was  said  of  the  theory  in  the  past,  this  point 
was  always  capital: 

The  Jews  as  a  nation  would  remain  as  they  were, 
moving  among  all  the  peoples.  The  new  Zion  was 
to  be  no  more  than  a  fixed  rallying  point,  an  estab- 
lished but  small  territorial  nationhood,  which  should 
do  no  more  than  proclaim  their  unity.  It  follows, 
therefore,  necessarily,  that  the  great  mass  of  Jews, 
outside  the  territorial  settlement,  would  have,  after 
such  a  settlement  had  been  formed,  to  obtain  a 


234  THE  JEWS 

definition  of  their  political  character.     What  is 
that  definition  to  be  ? 

I  think  myself  the  Jews  would  answer :  "  It  is 
to  be  precisely  what  it  is  to-day,  or,  rather,  what 
it  has  been  in  the  Occidental  nations  during  the 
past  generation."  That  is,  the  Jew  is  to  be  regarded 
as  the  full  national  in  the  nation  in  which  he  hap- 
pens to  be  for  the  time.  Nothing  shall  debar  him 
from  any  position  whatever  in  that  nation.  He 
shall  be  regarded  in  exactly  the  same  light  as  all 
the  other  citizens,  and,  conversely,  he  shall  obtain 
no  privilege.  In  countries  where  there  is  conscrip- 
tion, for  instance,  he  shall  be  a  conscript  like  any- 
body else ;  where  a  nation  in  which  he  happens  to 
find  himself  goes  to  war,  he  shall  be  compelled  to 
risk  his  life  for  it  like  any  other  citizen.  If  he 
happens  a  year  or  two  before  the  war  to  have 
settled  in  the  enemy's  country,  then  he  shall  be 
equally  compelled  to  fight  for  the  enemy  against 
his  former  country.  He  shall  in  every  respect  be 
regarded,  by  a  legal  fiction,  as  identical  with  the 
community  in  which  he  happens  to  be  settled  for 
the  moment,  hut  at  the  same  time  he  is  to  have 
some  special  relation  with  the  Jewish  State. 

He  and  he  alone  is  to  be  (certainly  in  practice 
and,  of  right,  in  legal  decisions)  eligible  for  admis- 
sion to  that  city,  for  office  in  it.  His  opinion  is  to 
count  in  the  conduct  of  that  State,  wherever  he 
may  personally  be  placed  in  the  world.  He  is  to 
regard  hmiself — indeed  that  is  inevitable  from  the 
definition  of  the  new  State — as  personally  allied 
to  it,  if  not  a  member  of  it.  He  cannot  dissociate 
himself  from  its  fortunes  nor  be  indifferent  to  its 
success  or  failure.  He  must  in  effect  be  loyal  to  it. 
He  owes  it  allegiance  of  a  moral  kind.     He  will 


ZIONISM  235 

necessarily  be  in  mucli  the  same  position  as  are 
men  of  Irish  descent  in  the  Colonies,  in  England, 
and  in  the  United  States,  to  the  surviving  and  now 
increasing  renmant  of  their  race  which  has  clung 
to  its  native  land.  But  in  the  particular  case  of 
the  Jew  this  allegiance  will  not  diminish  with  time. 
It  will  remain  ever  vivacious.  The  race,  as  its 
individual  components  pass  from  one  country  to 
another,  will  make  one  body,  generation  after 
generation,  with  the  fixed  polity  settled  in  the 
New  Zion.  That  certainly  is  the  ideal,  as  I  hear 
it  expressed  on  every  side  in  conversation  and  in 
writing  by  the  Jews  who  support  it. 

AVell,  if  the  ideal  is  left  in  that  condition  (and 
it  is  admitted  to  be  in  practice  in  that  condition), 
it  will  result  in  a  grievous  prejudice  to  the  Jewish 
people,  and  will  be  a  source  of  more  permanent 
evil  to  them  than  any  other  policy  they  could  have 
undertaken.  It  will  emphasize  that  very  point 
of  dual  allegiance  which  it  must  be  their  object  to 
soften  if  the  Jewish  problem  is  to  be  solved. 

The  existence  of  a  Zionist  State  will  bring  into 
relief  the  separate  character  of  the  Jew.  The 
Jewish  nation  will  no  longer  be  able  to  depend  for 
one  of  its  defences  upon  the  indifference  or  the 
ignorance  still  widely  present  among  its  hosts. 
Whereas  before  the  experiment  was  attempted, 
many  of  those  hosts  could  forget  the  difference 
between  him  and  them,  many  had  no  experience 
of  it  and  many  remarked  it  without  its  affecting 
their  attitude  towards  the  Jew ;  after  the  experi- 
ment has  been  put  in  practice  there  must  necessarily 
be  a  change. 

To  give  a  concrete  instance,  no  one  could  in 
his  anger  say  to  a  Jew,  "  You  disturb  our  repose; 


236  THE  JEWS 

you  are  an  alien  element  in  our  community ;  you 
must  leave  it."  For  if  he  meant  that,  he  was  at  the 
same  time  condemning  his  victim  to  universal  exile. 
But  once  an  established  national  State  exists,  once 
you  have  in  the  world  a-  considerable  number — say 
a  million  and  a  half  Jews — who  are  not  the  nationals 
of  any  other  nation,  but  are  the  citizens  of  a  Jewish 
nation  with  a  known  locality,  an  organized  State, 
then  the  suggestion  of  exile  changes  its  meaning. 
The  opponent  of  the  Jew  is  now  able  to  say :  "Go 
back  to  your  own  country,"  and  you  may  be  very 
certain  that  he  will  say  that  unless  some  other 
solution  than  the  legal  fiction  of  full  citizenship  in 
one  country  and  of  moral  allegiance  to  another  is 
dropped. 

The  presence  of  the  new  Zion  will  do  for  the 
Jewish  people  what  a  frame  does  for  a  picture.  It 
will  not  be  universal  to  them;  it  will  not  cover 
the  whole  field  of  Jewish  activity.  It  will  be  but 
a  fraction  of  the  whole.  But  it  will  inevitably 
emphasize  the  separation,  the  individual  and  alien 
character  of  the  whole.  It  will  concentrate  atten- 
tion upon  all  those  things  which  the  nineteenth 
century — in  what  I  have  called  "  the  Liberal  solu- 
tion— carefully  put  in  the  background  and  tried  to 
forget.  It  will  militate  against  an  honest  solution 
which  would  recognize  the  completely  distinct 
character  of  the  Jew  and  yet  refuse  to  subject 
them  to  any  indignity  or  suffering  on  that  account. 

There  is  more  than  this.  The  various  nations, 
taken  as  a  whole — the  Roumanians  as  a  whole, 
the  Poles  as  a  whole,  the  French,  the  Italians,  the 
English  as  a  whole — take  up  very  different  attitudes 
at  any  one  time  toward  Israel,  and  in  each  the 
attitude   varies   from   generation   to   generation; 


ZIONISM  237 

there  is  always,  at  any  one  time  of  history,  includ- 
ing our  own  time,  a  certain  number  of  national 
units  which  are  openly  hostile  to  the  Jew,  regret- 
ting his  presence  among  them,  restricting  his 
activities  and  determined,  above  all,  to  separate 
him,  by  a  sharp  legal  definition  if  possi})lc,  at  any 
rate  by  universal  social  practice,  from  the  rest  of 
the  community. 

Now  these  hostile  peoples  cannot  possibly  be 
prevented  from  using  the  weapon  put  into  their 
hands  by  the  existence  of  a  new  Zion,  with  the 
implications  I  have  just  defined.  It  is  difficult 
enough  even  now  for  the  countries  where  Jewish 
finance  controls  the  politicians  (and  these  are  still 
the  most  powerful  countries)  to  restrain  the  anti- 
Jewish  feelings  in  the  lesser  nations.  It  is  only 
done  by  elaborate  rules  which  are  imperfectly 
obeyed  and  which  are  felt  in  these  smaller  nations 
to  be  imposed  by  alien  interference  with  their 
domestic  rights.  The  protection  by  the  French, 
English  and  American  Governments  of  what  are 
called  by  a  euphemism  "national  minorities" — 
which  means,  of  course,  everywhere  the  Jews — is  a 
perilous  affair,  and  one  which  can  only  be  carried 
out  most  imperfectly  even  as  it  is.  But  the  one 
foundation  for  that  task,  the  one  argument  which 
its  promoters  appeal  to,  is  the  fact  that  the 
"national  minority" — that  is,  the  Jews  present 
in  a  hostile  community — can  plead  universal  exile. 

If  you  turn  them  out  in  order  to  suppress  them, 
they  can  only  leave  for  another  country.  They 
have  none  of  their  owti  to  go  to.  Or  again,  if  your 
treatment  of  the  Jews  is  harsher  than  that  of  your 
neighbour,  you  are  virtually  directing  a  Jewish 
emigration  over  your  neighbour's  borders,  and  to 


238  THE  JEWS 

that  your  neighbour  has  a  right  to  object.  But 
once  an  independent  Jewish  seat  is  established, 
this  argument  falls  to  the  ground.  It  is  no  reply 
then  to  tell  these  nations  that  the  new  Jewish  State 
cannot  contain  the  whole  Jewish  race.  It  will 
answer  that  it  is  not  concerned  with  the  whole 
Jewish  race  but  only  with  its  own  section  of  that 
race. 

Further,  it  will  of  course  always  be  to  the  interest 
of  those  who  desire  to  be  rid  of  the  Jewish  element 
in  their  midst  to  argue  that  the  Jewish  State  could 
be  more  peopled  and  that  there  is  plenty  of  room 
for  more  citizens.  Again,  those  hostile  to  the  Jews 
in  their  midst  can  say :  "  Very  well.  Since  there 
is  no  room  for  the  whole  mass  of  our  Jews  in  your 
new  State,  we  will  not  deal  with  the  whole  mass ; 
allow  us  to  suggest  that  such  and  such  individuals 
shall  leave  our  State,  where  they  are  not  wanted, 
and  shall  go  to  their  own."  And  they  would  pick 
out  the  Jews  whose  exile  would  most  weaken  the 
Jewish  community  in  their  midst. 

In  the  present  state  of  affairs,  with  the  Cabinets 
of  Rome,  Washington,  London  and  Paris  still 
heavily  influenced  by  Jewish  finance,  they  have, 
for  the  moment,  a  military  force  behind  them 
sufficient  to  impose  their  orders  in  some  measure 
upon  the  reluctant  nations  of  Eastern  Europe  and 
in  some  measure  to  create  an  artificial  protection 
for  the  Jews  there.  Even  if  this  protection  were 
to  last  another  generation  (which  is  unlikely),  the 
presence  of  Zionism,  interpreted  in  the  sense  I  have 
just  quoted,  would  be  enough  to  undermine  its 
work.  On  any  change  in  the  situation,  in  case  of 
any  conflict  between  these  Western  powers,  or  of 
any  change  by  one  or  more  of  them  in  its  attitude 


ZIONISM  239 

towards  the  Jews,  Zionism,  thus  interpreted,  would 
be  the  ruin  of  the  Jews  in  the  Centre  and  East  of 
Europe.  The  danger  is  of  such  great  practical 
importance  that  it  ought  to  be  the  very  first  matter 
for  discussion.  It  is  only  our  acquired  habit  of 
falsehood  and  secrecy  upon  the  Jewish  problem 
which  has  thrust  it  in  the  background.  In  the 
nature  of  things  it  must  come  to  the  front,  and  it 
would  be  far  better  to  have  the  lines  of  some  solution 
laid  down  before  it  becomes  insistent. 

What  are  those  lines  to  be  ? 

Their  general  character  is  clear  enough. 

Whether  it  be  of  advantage  or  no  to  have  a  purely 
Jewish  State  (I  mean  whether  it  be  of  advantage 
to  Israel  or  no)  may  be  safely  left  to  the  Jews  them- 
selves to  discuss.  But  one  thing  is  certain  :  if  they 
decide  in  favour  of  its  continuance,  then  they  must 
decide  also  in  favour  of  some  form  of  recognition 
for  the  purely  Jewish  nationality  of  the  Jews  outside 
that  State. 

Thus  only  will  the  situation  become  open  and 
therefore  innocuous.  If  they  try  under  the  new 
conditions  to  maintain  the  old  fiction  that  a  Jew 
is  at  the  same  time  a  Jew  and  yet  not  a  Jew,  that 
he  can  be  at  the  same  time  a  Jew  and  an  English- 
man, or  a  Jew  and  a  Russian,  or  a  Jew  and  an  Italian, 
they  will  be  trying  to  maintain  it  under  conditions 
quite  other  than  those  of  the  past,  and  under  con- 
ditions where  the  falsehood  will  break  down  in 
practice. 

Suppose  you  were  to  make  such  recognition 
partly  voluntary,  and  leave  it  to  the  Jew  wherever 
he  might  be  to  claim  or  not  to  claim  his  nationality 
as  a  Jew;  to  be  regarded,  if  he  so  willed,  as  a 
national  of  the  Jewish  nation  in  Zion,  or  as  a  national 


240  THE  JEWS 

of  the  people  among  whom  he  happened  to  be  living 
for  the  moment.  You  may  say  that  under  this 
purely  voluntary  system  (which  would,  I  suppose, 
be  more  just)  very  few  would  choose  for  Zion. 
The  great  majority  would  like  to  go  on  under  the 
old  fiction.  That  is  certainly  true  of  the  West; 
but  would  it  be  true  of  the  East  ?  Would  it  be 
true  of  either  East  or  West  in  a  moment  of  persecu- 
tion? I  think  it  would  not.  Even  if  it  be  true 
of  the  East  to-day,  it  certainly  would  not  be 
true  of  any  body  of  Jews  suffering  there,  in  the 
future,  any  degree  of  molestation. 

But  apart  from  that:  Supposing  but  a  small 
minority  availed  themselves  of  this  voluntary  form 
of  recognition,  supposing  only  a  small  minority  to 
claim  Jewish  nationality  as  defined  in  the  terms  of 
the  Zionist  State,  there  would  still  be  the  contrast 
between  those  who  had  thus  publicly  proclaimed 
themselves  nationals  of  Zion  and  those  who  hung 
back.  In  other  words,  short  of  a  general  admitted 
maintenance  of  the  old  fiction  (of  which  Zionism 
more  than  any  other  force  must  accelerate  the 
breakdown),  you  must  have,  through  Zionism,  an 
accelerated  tendency  to  treating  Jews  throughout 
the  world  as  being,  whether  without  the  New  Zion- 
ist State  or  within  it,  a  separate  people.  And 
they  are  a  separate  people,  they  cannot  be  other. 
My  whole  plea  is  that  this  truth  should  be  recog- 
nized and  acted  upon;  for  if  it  is  shirked  or 
denied  it  will  take  its  revenge.  Reality  always 
takes  its  revenge  upon  unreal  pretence. 

There  remains  in  connection  with  Zionism  another 
consideration  which  is  also  of  importance,  though 
of  a  very  different  kind.  Is  the  new  Jewish  State 
to  rely  upon  its  own  military  strength  and  its  own 


ZIONISM  241 

police — thongli  perhaps  guaranteed  (for  what  that 
may  be  worth)  by  international  agreement — or  is  it 
to  be  a  protected  State  occupied,  defended  and 
policed  by  the  strength  and  fighting  qualities  of 
some  other  kind  of  men,  not  Jews — Englishmen, 
Frenchmen  or  what  not  ? 

As  we  know,  the  particular  solution  attempted, 
the  particular  Zionism  of  which  the  experiment  is 
now  being  made  in  Palestine,  plumps  for  the  second 
solution.  The  protection  of  Jews  from  natives  is 
to  be  undertaken  by  a  garrison  of  Englishmen.  It 
plumps  for  this  solution  under  conditions  as  adverse 
as  they  well  can  be.  The  present  expemnent  is, 
as  we  noted  at  the  end  of  the  last  chapter,  not  an 
independent  Jewish  State,  national,  guaranteed, 
standing  in  its  own  strength ;  but  a  'protected  State ; 
and  that  State  protected  by  one  nation :  Great 
Britain.  The  new  Zion  docs  not  depend  for  its 
internal  peace,  for  its  establishment  against  highly 
hostile  forces,  for  the  ex-propriation  of  the  local 
landowners,  for  the  keeping  of  the  peace  between 
local  elements  highly  hostile  to  itself,  upon 
Jewish  soldiers  and  Jewish  courage.  It  depends 
upon  British  soldiers,  British  organization  and 
British  sacrifice.  Those  who  have  promoted  the 
Zionist  experiment  have  deliberately  chosen  the 
very  worst  moment  for  such  a  folly. 

Granted  that  whoever  was  to  be  the  Protector 
he  must  be  a  friendly  Protector,  no  worse  solution 
could  have  been  devised.  A  little  nation  is  always 
morally  guaranteed  in  its  independence,  if  only  by 
the  balance  of  the  greater  nations.  The  violation 
of  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  offers  nothing  of  a 
rule ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  an  odious  exception. 
And  an  exception  it  would  have  been  just  as  much 


242  THE  JEWS 

if  the  neutrality  had  not  been  officially  guaranteed 
under  Prussia's  own  hand.  The  smaller  nations, 
of  which  the  modern  world  is  full,  will  have,  we 
may  be  very  certain,  a  long  lease  of  life.  The  larger 
nations  envy  but  applaud  their  security  and  happi- 
ness. They  will  not  be  allowed  to  disappear.  The 
same,  I  think,  would  be  true  of  the  Jewish  national 
seat,  could  it  be  established,  inhabited  wholly  or 
mainly  by  men  of  the  Jewish  race,  religion  and 
culture ;  presenting  to  the  world  the  same  aspect 
as  does,  for  instance,  Denmark  to-day.  But  to 
depend  for  its  establishment  upon  the  superior 
power,  upon  the  military  and  financial  sacrifice,  of 
another  and  totally  different  people,  is  a  challenge 
and  a  provocation.  It  is  the  building  of  the  pyramid 
upwards  from  its  apex.  It  is  an  experiment  in  the 
most  unstable  of  unstable  equilibriums. 

The  matter  is,  of  course,  being  discussed  every- 
where from  the  point  of  view  of  Great  Britain,  and 
nowhere  more  eagerly  than  among  those  who  have 
to  do  the  policing  and  the  armed  protection.  But 
we  are  not  here  concerned  with  the  ill  effects  such  a 
situation  must  have  on  Great  Britain — effects  so 
ill  that  the  experiment  as  a  merely  British  Protec- 
torate is  bound  to  break  down — we  are  rather  con- 
cerned with  the  effect  it  may  have  upon  the  Jews 
themselves.  No  great  nation  will  sacrifice  its 
foreign  policy,  will  admit  a  point  of  acute  weakness, 
simply  to  please  the  Jews.  Sooner  or  later  such  a 
nation  is  bound  to  say:  "  We  cannot  sacrifice  our 
interests  to  yours.  Look  after  yourselves."  And 
that  is  where  the  peril  to  the  Jews  of  this  system, 
a  protectorate,  comes  in. 

If  there  were  any  reason  to  suppose  a  natural 
alliance  between  the  British  Army  and  the  Jews; 


ZIONISM  243 

if  we  could  imagine  British  officers  and  men  taking 
a  natural  pleasure  in  ousting  the  Arab  and  making 
way  for  the  Jew,  it  would  be  another  matter.  ]f 
there  were  something  in  the  nature  of  tilings  which 
made  that  alliance  permanent  and  stable,  if  the 
Jews  were  a  fully  accepted  part  of  the  British 
Commonwealth  as  are,  for  instance,  the  Scots  or 
the  Welsh,  some  permanent  arrangement  might  be 
possible.  But  they  are  nothing  of  the  sort.  The 
position  is  wholly  unnatural.  It  cannot  last.  And 
if  it  cannot  last  with  the  British  connection,  how 
should  it  last  with  any  other  ?  How  shall  the 
transition  be  made  from  a  British  Protectorate 
to  another  protectorate  ?  Or  how,  seeing  what 
violent  hatreds  have  already  been  roused  by  the 
mere  beginnings  of  the  experiment,  shall  the  con- 
flict which  makes  the  protectorate  necessary  be 
avoided  ? 

So  far  the  dislike  of  the  position,  which  is  very 
far-reaching,  and  already  very  deep  in  England, 
is  a  passive  dislike.  No  English  soldier  has  yet 
been  killed ;  there  has  been  but  little  necessity,  as 
yet,  to  repress  the  Arab  and  create  hostility,  though 
even  what  little  necessity  there  has  been  was  odious 
to  the  troops  concerned.  But  things  cannot  remain 
in  that  state.  The  conflict  is  inevitable.  When 
the  conflict  comes  the  feeling  which  has  hitherto 
been  passive  will  become  active.  People  will  not 
tolerate  the  loss  of  sons  and  brothers  in  a  quarrel 
which  is  none  of  theirs,  which  cannot  possibly 
strengthen  the  British  State ;  which,  if  anything, 
must  weaken  it ;  which  is  felt  to  be  precarious  and 
ephemeral,  and  which  will  be  undertaken  against 
those  with  whom  British  sympathy  naturally  lies, 
and  in  favour  of  those  with  whom  the  average 


244  THE  JEWS 

soldier  and  citizen — unlike  the  professional  politi- 
cian— has  no  ties  and  no  sympathy. 

The  matter  can  be  very  plainly  put  thus: 

If  a  Zionist  experiment  is  necessary,  or  advisable, 
then  let  it  be  made  in  such  a  fashion  that  it  can  be 
dependent  upon  Jewish  police  and  a  Jewish  army 
alone.  Let  it  not  rely  upon  a  foreign  protectorate, 
which  will  not  last  long,  which  is  a  weakness  to 
the  directing  power,  and  which  creates  a  false 
position. 

If  it  be  answered  that  the  Jews  are  not  capable 
of  producing  such  an  army  or  such  a  police,  that 
they  would  inevitably  be  defeated  and  oppressed 
by  the  hostile  and  more  warlike  majority  among 
whom  they  would  find  themselves,  then  let  them 
make  the  experiment  elsewhere.  But  it  is  certain 
that  the  present  form  of  the  new  Protectorate  is 
the  most  perilous  form  which  could  have  been 
chosen  for  it,  so  far  as  the  Jews  themselves  are 
concerned.  I  appeal  confidently  to  the  near  future 
to  confirm  this  judgment. 

From  one  most  poignant  aspect  of  the  matter 
which  we  all  have  in  mind  I  deliberately  abstain — 
I  mean  the  effect  of  the  experiment  upon  Christian 
and  Mohammedan  feelings  throughout  the  world 
of  an  attempt  to  establish  Jewish  control  over  the 
Holy  Places.  I  abstain  because  of  the  emotions 
aroused  by  it,  which  are  violent  and  universal,  and 
are  of  the  sort  I  have  deliberately  determined,  as 
my  Preface  has  informed  the  reader,  to  keep  out  of 
this  essay.  Things  indeed  are  not  yet  at  the  point 
of  open  quarrel  in  this  most  perilous  of  all  the 
results  of  Zionism.  We  must  trust  for  a  solution 
before  it  is  too  late,  but  that  solution  will  not  be 
reached  if  we  select  for  discussion  matters  upon 


ZIONISM  245 

which  there  can  be  no  agreement,  and  on  which 
there  is  now  aroused  the  most  passionate  feeling. 

Still,  though  I  abstain  from  discussing  that  point,  I 
would  beg  the  Jewish  readers  of  this  my  book  to  bear 
it  in  mind.  If  they  believe  the  religious  emotions 
to  be  dead  in  the  modern  world,  or  even  to  be  lessen- 
ing, they  may  find  themselves  terribly  disillusioned. 

I  also  refrain  from  making  comment  here — I  have 
made  it  strongly  enough  elsewhere — upon  the 
strange  selection  made  by  the  Jews  for  their  first 
ruler  of  the  Arabs  and  Christians  in  Palestine.  I 
will  do  no  more  than  to  say  that  a  desire  to  shield 
the  less  worthy  specimens  of  one's  race  is  natural 
and  even  praiseworthy.  One  may  even  take  a 
certain  glory  in  that  one  is  able  to  protect  them 
from  outsiders.  But  to  give  them  too  great  a 
prominence  is  a  mistake,  and  it  is  indeed  deplorable 
that  of  the  whole  world  of  Jews — from  crowds  of 
Jews  eminent  in  administration,  and  political  science, 
known  for  their  upright  dealing  and  blameless 
careers — Mr.  Balfour's  Jewish  advisers  (whoever 
they  were)  should  have  pitched  on  the  author  of 
the  Marconi  contract  and  the  spokesman  of  the 
famous  declaration  in  the  House  of  Commons  that 
no  politician  had  touched  Marconi  shares. 


OUR  DUTY 


CHAPTER  XII 

OUR  DUTY 

The  solution  which  I  propose,  which  I  believe 
could  be  made  stable,  and  which  I  further  believe 
is  the  only  stable  one,  demands  a  greater,  a  more 
necessary  effort  upon  our  side  than  upon  that  of 
our  guests. 

It  is  the  average  man  who  must  do  his  duty  in 
the  matter,  and  it  is  upon  him  that  the  responsibility 
will  fall,  if  we  take  up  once  again  that  wretched 
sequence  of  ill- ease,  persecution,  reaction,  which  has 
marked  so  many  centuries. 

We  are  the  vast  majority,  we  are  the  organism 
within  which  this  small  minority  moves.  We  are, 
or  could  be  if  we  chose,  the  makers  of  our  own 
laws,  and  we  are  certainly  the  makers  of  our  own 
political  moods. 

I  know  it  is  the  custom  to  throw  all  the  respon- 
sibility upon  the  other  side,  to  be  perpetually 
devising  instruments  for  their  guidance  which  soon 
become  instruments  for  their  oppression,  and  in 
general  to  imagine  a  problem  wherein  the  part 
of  the  European  is  purely  negative  and  all  the  work 
has  to  be  done  by  the  Jewish  stranger. 

That  attitude  is  not  only  false  but  grossly  undig- 
nified. When  men  accuse  some  one  weaker  than 
themselves    of    interference    with,    and    even    of 

249 


250  THE  JEWS 

acquiring  power  over,  tliem  they  condemn  them- 
selves. It  is  in  the  main  our  fault  if  an  equilibrium 
has  so  rarely  been  reached  in  all  these  sixty  genera- 
tions of  debate.  For  however  alien,  however 
irritant  the  foreign  body  be,  it  is  we  who  have  in 
our  hands  the  solvent  of  that  irritant  and  of  relieving 
the  strain  which  it  causes. 

Here  let  me  recall  at  the  risk  of  repetition  (for 
repetition  is  necessary  to  lucidity  in  such  argu- 
ments) the  logical  process  with  which  I  opened  this 
essay.  I  say  that  the  vast  majority,  the  fixed  race 
through  which  in  fluid  and  nomadic  form  Israel 
goes  moving  from  century  to  century,  is  not  free  to 
discharge  its  responsibility  by  any  one  of  those 
attempted  solutions  which  I  have  condemned. 
No  man,  I  trust,  will  have  the  cynicism  to  say  that 
mere  persecution,  let  alone  its  horrible  extreme,  is 
or  should  be  a  solution.  No  man  can  predict  the 
same  of  exile  either.  No  man  can  discharge  our 
responsibility  by  pretending  that  any  solution 
arrived  at  must  be  for  our  good  alone  and  may 
disregard  that  of  those  who  live  among  us. 

It  is  a  statement  one  hears  frequently  enough 
that  the  masters  of  house  have  alone  to  decide  what 
shall  be  done  under  their  roof :  that  the  interloper, 
the  alien  element,  has  no  standing  and  no  right  to 
complain  of  whatever  measures  may  be  taken  for 
the  protection  of  the  household.  The  thing  so 
put  sounds  plausible.  It  is  essentially  false.  It  is 
comparable  to  the  argument  applied  to  private 
property — that  because  private  property  is  a  right, 
and  that  because  a  man  "  may  do  what  he  likes 
with  his  own,"  therefore  he  may  use  it  to  the  mani- 
fest hurt  of  others.  Moreover,  the  analogy  is  false ; 
for  when  a  man  is  talking  of  "  the  master  of  the 


OUR  DUTY  251 

house  "  having  the  right  in  his  household  to  decide 
its  own  way  of  living  and  of  treating  its  guests,  he 
is  considering  a  very  small  unit  in  a  great  com- 
munity ;  his  household  in  the  whole  nation :  a 
little  body  which,  if  it  discharge  or  in  any  other  way 
deal  with  something  alien  to  itself,  will  inflict  no 
great  injury  upon  that  foreign  body,  since  there  is 
all  the  world  for  it  to  turn  to  outside.  But  in  the 
relations  between  the  Jew  and  Christendom,  or  the 
Jew  and  Islam,  the  parallel  fails.  It  is  precisely 
because  there  is  no  "  outside"  to  which  the  exile 
can  turn  that  a  duty  is  imposed  on  us. 

It  is  true  indeed  that  when  a  small  and  alien 
minority  assumes  to  dictate  the  policy  of  the  rest, 
to  regard  its  own  advantages  alone  and  subordinate 
to  those  advantages  the  life  of  all,  the  claim  is 
grotesque  and  must  be  disallowed.  But  we  should 
remember  upon  the  other  side  that  it  is  only  by 
exaggerating  its  claim  that  a  minority  can  live  at 
all.  It  is  only  by  fierce  insistence  upon  its  right 
to  survive  that  its  survival  is  guaranteed.  We  can 
arrive  at  justice  in  this  matter  by  the  process  of 
putting  ourselves  in  the  shoes  of  those  in  relation 
to  whom  we  propose  to  act. 

Put  yourself  in  the  shoes  of  the  Jew  and  ask  how 
this  doctrine  of  "  doing  what  one  likes  with  one's 
own"  and  being  "  the  master  of  one's  own  house- 
hold" would  look  to  you. 

A  public  example  which  very  rightly  made  a 
stir  a  few  months  before  this  book  was  published, 
may  serve  as  text.  A  learned  and  distinguished 
Jew,  Dr.  Oscar  Levy,  a  man  who  was  an  asset  to 
any  community,  was  turned  out  of  the  country 
under  circumstances  which  many  of  my  readers 
will  recall.     He  pleaded  with  perfect  justice  that  as 


252  THE  JEWS 

a  Jew  sucli  an  exile  left  him  homeless;  that  the 
original  country  of  which  he  was  nominally  a 
citizen  (under  the  broken-down  fiction  that  Jews 
can  be  Germans,  or  Austrians,  or  what  not,  and 
cease  to  be  themselves)  would  not  have  him ;  that 
his  interests,  his  livelihood  had  attached  him  to  this 
country  ;  he  had  never  hidden  his  true  nationality 
nor  changed  his  name,  nor  used  any  of  those  subter- 
fuges which,  even  when  excusable,  are  dangerous 
and  contemptible  in  so  many  of  his  compatriots. 
There  was  no  conceivable  reason  why  such  rigour 
should  be  used  against  this  man,  save  indeed  that 
he  was  a  Jew. 

Put  yourself  in  his  shoes  and  see  how  the  thing 
looks.  There  is  no  nation  to  which  you  could  have 
returned :  there  is  no  society  to  receive  you  as  a 
member  of  it.  You  are  not  permitted  to  remain 
in  the  atmosphere  with  which  you  have  grown 
familiar,  in  the  surroundings  which  have  become 
those  of  your  later  life,  and  your  consonance  with 
which  it  is  too  late  for  you  to  change.  Could  there 
be  a  grosser  cruelty  or  a  grosser  injustice  ?  It  is 
the  very  core  of  the  whole  problem  that  somewhere 
the  Jew  must  be  harboured,  and  therefore  to  some 
one  of  us  the  question  must  be  put,  "  Will  you 
harbour  him,  and  if  so  upon  what  terms  ?  "  If  each 
man  answer,  "  No,  I  will  not,"  then  all  collectively 
become  oppressors.  It  is  no  answer  to  say,  "  These 
men  are  not  of  us,  and  therefore  they  may  conspire 
against  us,"  or  "  Their  interests  are  divergent  from 
ours  and  therefore  may  and  do  clash  with  ours." 
All  that  is  granted.  That  is  merely  stating  the 
problem,  not  solving  it.  What  do  we  say  in  daily 
life  of  men  who  merely  state  their  grievances,  harp 
upon  them,  and  make  no  effort  to  put  them  right  ? 


OUR  DUTY  253 

What  do  we  tliink  of  men  who  perpetually  complain 
of  something  naturally  weaker  than  themselves, 
make  no  effort  to  understand  its  necessities  and 
attempt  only  to  rid  themselves  of  the  nuisance 
without  considering  reciprocal  duty  and  mutual 
relations  ?  The  same  should  we  think  of  those  who 
so  act  towards  the  Jewish  community  in  our  midst 
which,  for  all  its  domination  and  exaggerated 
modern  power,  is  ultimately  at  our  mercy,  far 
weaker  than  we  are  in  numbers  and  situation. 
Without  further  elaboration  of  what  should  be  an 
obvious  political  and  moral  principle,  let  us  consider 
our  part  in  the  task. 

It  consists,  I  conceive,  in  two  very  different 
determinations :  two  very  different  but  allied  lines 
of  conduct  to  which  we  must  pledge  ourselves. 
The  first,  until  recently  the  most  difficult,  is  the 
determination  to  speak  of  the  Jewish  people  as 
openly,  as  continuously,  with  as  much  interest, 
with  as  close  an  examination  as  we  speak  of  any 
other  foreign  body  with  which  we  are  brought  in 
contact. 

The  second,  which  will  perhaps  be  the  more 
difficult  duty  to  practise  in  the  future,  will  be  to 
avoid,  in  the  individual  public  recognition  of  those 
with  whom  we  must  live,  all  futile  anger  and  all 
mere  reaction.  I  mean  by  mere  reaction,  blind 
reaction.  The  instinctive  thrusting  back  against 
a  thing  which  presses  on  us,  the  uncalculated  and 
animal  return  blow,  the  consequences  of  which, 
either  to  ourselves  or  to  others,  are  not  weighed 
when  it  is  delivered;  the  futile  complaint,  the 
futile  rage,  the  futile  cruelty. 

Unless  those  two  duties  are  undertaken  together, 
unless  the  determination  to  practise  both  be  of 


254  THE  JEWS 

equal  weight,  tlie  solution  I  propose  will  fail.  To 
discuss  the  problem  presented  by  the  presence  of 
the  Jewish  people,  to  talk  of  them  as  one  would  of 
any  other,  openly  and  frankly,  to  interest  oneself 
in  their  history  and  in  their  present  doings:  all 
this  is  only  to  aggravate  the  trouble  if  we  use  that 
open  dealing  for  the  purpose  of  doing  them  a  hurt, 
or  if,  in  the  course  of  it,  we  allow  ourselves  (merely 
from  irritation  or  contrast,  from  the  sense  which 
all  must  have  of  opposition  to  things  alien)  to  react 
against  them  without  consideration  of  the  immedi- 
ate and  ultimate  consequences  not  only  to  them- 
selves but  to  us. 

Conversely,  the  determination  to  regard  their 
interests  and  to  avoid  every  possible  occasion  of 
conflict,  to  hold  a  just  measure  with  them,  is  quite 
useless  if  we  falsify  the  whole  relation  by  secrecy 
and  false  convention. 

The  moment  that  comes  in,  there  comes  in  with 
it  a  secret  dissatisfaction  with  oneself  and  with 
the  whole  situation.  The  position  is  falsified,  the 
seed  of  animosity  greatly  stimulated,  the  danger 
of  mutual  contempt  made  inevitable. 

Now  let  us  look  at  these  two  branches  of  what 
we  have  to  do  in  the  matter,  and  see  what  difficulties 
lie  in  the  way. 

In  the  way  of  frankly  recognizing,  examining, 
taking  an  open  interest  in  the  Jewish  minority  in 
our  midst  there  lie  three  very  powerful  obstacles. 
First  the  inherited  convention  of  polite  society; 
secondly,  and  much  the  most  powerful,  fear ;  and 
thirdly,  the  very  reputable  desire  to  avoid 
ofience. 

The  first  of  these,  the  fear  of  convention,  has 
many  roots — the  necessity  for  harmony  in  a  leisured 


OUR  DUTY  255 

life,  that  is,  tlie  desire  to  avoid  friction  even  at  the 
expense  of  truth,  the  mere  momentum  of  a  quiet 
habit,  the  fear  of  misunderstanding  which  may 
come  from  one  side  casting  ridicule  upon  the  other, 
which  may  offend  the  person  whom  we  have  mis- 
understood, or  make  us  ridiculous  in  his  eyes  and 
those  of  our  audience. 

There  is  also,  of  course,  as  a  cause,  more  powerful 
than  any  other,  the  force  which  lies  behind  all 
convention,  the  force  which  makes  a  man  take  off 
his  hat  in  a  church,  which  forbids  his  walking  with- 
out boots  in  the  street  on  the  driest  day,  that  is, 
the  pressure  of  general  practice.  But  the  thing  to 
realize  is  that  in  this  form — I  mean  as  distinct  from 
any  feeling  of  fear  or  of  charity — the  thing  is  a 
convention  and  a  convention  only.  Difficult  as  it 
is  to  break  with  conventions,  unless  this  convention 
is  broken  once  and  for  all,  the  Jewish  problem 
remains  with  us  unsolved  and  growing  in  acuteness 
and  peril. 

You  can  meet  an  Irishman  and  discuss  with  him 
the  conditions  of  his  nation.  You  can  ask  an 
Italian  when  he  was  last  in  Italy,  or  congratulate  a 
Frenchman  upon  his  acquisition  of  your  tongue  or 
tell  him  that  it  is  difficult  for  him  to  understand 
your  own  customs :  but  a  convention  arose  under 
the  Liberal  fiction — to  which  I  have  devoted  so 
much  space  in  the  earlier  part  of  this  book — that  to 
do  any  of  these  very  natural  things  in  the  case  of  a 
Jew  is  monstrous.  Your  audience  is  shocked  if  you 
ask  some  learned  Jew  at  a  public  table  a  question 
upon  his  national  literature  or  history.  It  is  a 
solecism  to  refer  to  his  nationality  at  all,  save 
perhaps  now  and  then  in  terms  of  foolish  praise — 
in  nine  times  out  of  ten  praise  not  to  the  point  and 


266  THE  JEWS 

not  desired  by  its  recipient.  And  even  praise  must 
be  approaclied  most  gingerly.  You  may  not  ask 
a  Jew  in  London,  however  keen  your  desire  for 
information,  whether  he  had  cousins  in  Lithuania 
or  Galicia  who  have  told  him  of  the  conditions  of 
those  distressed  countries.  You  may  not  ask  him 
when  his  family  came  to  England,  nor,  if  he  be  a 
recent  arrival,  what  he  thinks  of  the  country.  The 
whole  thing  is  taboo. 

More  than  this :  you  must,  you  are  expected  (or 
were  until  quite  recently  expected)  to  emphasize 
in  a  most  extravagant  manner  the  complete  identity 
of  your  Jewish  guest  with  the  people  among  whom 
he  lives.  I  do  not  take  offence  if  some  chance 
acquaintance,  noting  my  French  name,  talks  to  me 
about  France,  and  is  interested  in  my  experience 
as  a  conscript  long  ago  in  that  country.  Mr. 
Eedmond  did  not  feel  himself  insulted  when  those 
he  met  in  London  discussed  Irish  matters  with  him, 
from  the  most  acute  difficulty  in  politics,  to  the 
most  general  allusion  to  the  Abbey  Theatre.  The 
editor  of  an  Italian  review  visiting  England  is  not 
shocked  if  you  ask  him  when  he  left  Florence,  nor 
are  those  around  you  horrified  at  the  ill- breeding  of 
your  question.  But  in  the  matter  of  the  Jew  there 
stands  this  convention  cutting  you  off  from  any 
such  straightforward  and  simple  way  of  dealing 
with  a  fellow-being.  That  convention,  I  say,  must 
be  broken  down  if  we  are  to  get  any  results  at  all 
and  to  establish  a  permanent  peace. 

The  thing  was  not,  of  course,  entirely  irrational 
in  origin.  No  custom  is.  It  was  to  be  excused 
upon  several  grounds. 

First,  there  was  the  fact  that  many  people  were 
known  to  cherish  so  strong  an  hostility  to  Jews  that 


OUR  DUTY  257 

to  emphasize  the  Jewish  character  of  anyone 
present  might  awaken  that  hostility. 

Then  there  was  the  peculiar  rapid  transition  both 
of  Jewish  movements  and  of  Jewish  fortunes.  In 
the  case  I  have  suggested,  of  asking  a  London  Jew 
whether  he  had  relatives  in  Galicia  or  Lithuania, 
you  might  be  stumbling  upon  relations  much 
poorer  than  himself  in  the  East  End  of  London ; 
or,  again,  you  might  seem  to  be  emphasizing  the 
nomadic  character  of  the  race  and  thereby  also 
emphasizing  the  contrast  between  it  and  our 
own. 

But  much  the  strongest  excuse  for  the  convention 
was  the  well-founded  idea  that  its  exercise  pleased 
the  Jews  themselves.  Men  avoided  direct  mention 
of  Jewish  nationality  because  it  was  felt  that  such 
direct  mention  was  almost  an  insult.  It  was  a 
thing  which  the  Jew  in  whose  presence  you  found 
yourself  desired  to  have  kept  in  the  background; 
and  though  we  might  not  understand  why  he 
desired  it,  yet  we  respected  his  desire  as  we  do  that 
of  anyone  with  whom  we  wish  to  preserve  har- 
monious relations.  Most  men,  for  instance,  are 
indifferent  upon,  say,  the  matter  of  smoldng.  Most 
men  are  quite  at  their  ease  when  they  are  asked 
whether  they  smoke  or  not,  and  if  they  do,  whether 
they  prefer  this  or  that  brand  of  tobacco.  But  now 
and  then  one  comes  across  a  man  who,  from  some 
accident  of  training  (as,  for  instance,  a  man 
whose  mother  brought  him  up  to  think  smoking 
a  mortal  sin),  does  not  like  to  have  it  alluded 
to. 

I  myself  know  the  case  of  a  man  of  the  highest 
culture  and  of  considerable  social  position  to  whom 
you  may  not  say  anything  about  pigs  either  in 

s 


258  THE  JEWS 

connection  witli  farming  or  in  connection  with  food ; 
for  his  sympathies  are  Mohammedan.  In  these 
exceptional  cases,  when  we  know  of  our  guest's 
particular  desire,  we  yield  to  it  for  the  sake  of 
harmony  and  of  right  living.  So  is  it  in  this  matter 
of  the  former  convention  against  alluding  to  Jewish 
nationality  or  Jewish  interests  in  any  form. 
Whether  the  Jews  were  wise  or  not  to  cherish  that 
convention,  as  they  undoubtedly  did,  does  not 
concern  this  part  of  my  argument.  I  am  talking 
of  our  duty  and  not  of  theirs.  But  I  say  that 
unless  the  convention  is  softened  and  at  last  dis- 
solved, nothing  can  be  done.  Both  parties  should 
know  that  it  only  does  harm.  It  renders  stilted 
and  absurd  all  our  relations;  it  fosters  that 
suspicion  of  secrecy  which  I  have  insisted  upon  as 
the  chief  irritant  in  those  relations,  and  it  creates  a 
feeling  of  exception,  of  oddity,  which  is  the  very 
worst  service  that  could  be  rendered  to  the  Jews 
themselves. 

Some  little  time  ago  the  convention  went  so  far 
that  even  a  mention,  a  neutral — nay,  a  laudatory 
mention,  of  anything  Jewish  in  a  general  company 
led  to  an  immediate  awkwardness.  Men  looked 
over  their  shoulders,  women  gave  downward  glances 
right  and  left.  A  sort  of  hunt  began,  to  see  whether 
anyone  present  could  possibly  in  any  remote 
connection  be  offended  by  the  monstrous  deed. 
If  a  man  said,  "  What  a  poet  Heine  was  and  how 
thoroughly  Jewish  is  his  irony !  "  and  said  it  in  a 
room  full  of  people,  the  adjective  "  Jewish"  acted 
like  a  pistol  shot— could  anything  be  more  absurd ! 
Yet  so  it  was. 

But  the  point  I  make  is  not  against  the 
absurdity  of  this  convention  but  against  its  peril. 


OUK  DUTY  259 

It  is  an  obstacle  to  all  right  handling  of  what  is 
becoming  daily  a  more  and  more  insistent  and 
acute  dilliculty. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  getting  rid  of  such  a  con- 
vention is  not  to  be  effected  by  violent  methods,  nor 
immediately.  But  our  duty  is  to  accelerate  its 
decline  and,  within  reason,  to  enlarge  every  oppor- 
tunity for  treating  the  Jewish  nationality  precisely 
as  one  treats  any  other.  I  mean  precisely  as  one 
treats  any  other  in  conversation  or  in  writing.  We 
all  know  the  insane  type  which  loves  to  break  con- 
vention merely  because  it  is  a  convention,  and  we 
shall  certamly  have  to  be  on  our  guard  against  this 
sort  of  person  in  the  near  future,  as  this  particular 
convention  begins  to  break  down.  But  without 
encouraging  such  eccentricities  there  is  ample  room 
for  an  increasing  ease  in  the  recognition  of  what 
after  all  we  know  to  be  reality,  a  reality  which 
requires  open  discussion  for  the  good  of  us  all.  The 
danger  is  lest  even  this  merely  conventional  obstacle 
should  by  too  long  a  resistance  dam  up  forces  which 
tend  to  break  it  down  and  therefore  lest,  when  it  is 
pulled  down,  we  should  admit  the  other  extreme  of 
licence,  with  its  opportunity  for  insult  and  damage. 
That  is  what  has  happened  in  the  case  of  other  much 
more  reasonable  Victorian  conventions,  and  we 
must  not  have  it  happen  in  the  case  of  the  conven- 
tion which  for  so  long  forbade  us  to  admit  that  a 
Jew  was  a  Jew  or  to  take  any  open  interest,  when  he 
was  present,  in  the  things  which  he  himself  thinks 
the  most  interesting  of  all. 

And  if  anyone  shall  answer  that  convention  is 
necessary,  lest  on  its  decline  open  hostility  should 
follow,  I  can  only  say  that  this  is  to  despair  of 
any  equitable  solution  at  all.    But  my  whole  thesis 


260  THE  JEWS 

in  tWs  book  is  that  sucli  a  solution  need  not  yet 
be  despaired  of. 

There  is  one  more  thing  to  be  said  in  this  matter 
of  the  old  taboo.  However  long  it  may  linger  in  the 
small  educated  class,  it  has  gone  for  ever  among 
the  populace,  and  it  is  the  popular  instinct  we  shall 
have  mainly  to  deal  with  in  the  difficult  times  ahead 
of  us. 

The  populace  in  this  country  talks  upon  Jewish 
matters  with  a  franlaiess  which  would  astonish  the 
drawing-rooms,  and  has  so  talked  upon  them  for  a 
generation  past — ever  since  the  great  novel  influx 
of  poor  Jews  began  to  pour  into  our  towns.  It  not 
only  talks  thus  openly  to  and  of  Jews  upon  its  own 
level,  but  it  is  thoroughly  alive  to  the  presence  and 
power  of  Jews  in  government.  Those  who  think 
that  a  continuance  of  the  convention  can  put  ofi 
the  necessity  for  a  solution  would  be  disillusioned 
if  they  would  spend  a  few  days  east  of  Aldgate, 
and  mix  with  their  fellow- citizens  there. 

Allied  to  this  obstacle  of  convention  is  the  very 
real  obstacle  of  charity. 

Now  we  are  here  dealing  not  with  a  positive 
charity  but  with  a  negative  one  and  with  a  form  of 
charity  uncommonly  like  slackness. 

The  man  who  honestly  thinks  that  any  allusion 
to  Jewish  races  in  contemporary  art,  history  or 
letters  in  the  presence  of  a  Jew  is  offensive  and 
therefore  to  be  avoided,  from  goodness  of  heart,  and 
who  also  "practises  the  same  virtue  where  any  other 
foreigner  is  concerned  is  rare  indeed.  There  are 
such  men,  for  men  of  exceptional  goodness  coupled 
with  exceptional  stupidity  are  to  be  found.  But  the 
excuse  of  charity  as  it  is  generally  put  forward  is 
not  wholly  ingenuous.     Where  it  is  ingenuous  our 


OUR  DUTY  261 

reply  to-day  must  be  that  even  at  the  risk  of 
occasional  ill- ease,  the  danger  of  offence  must  be 
risked;  for  unless  we  risk  it  there  is  increasing 
peril  of  a  much  greater  offence  against  justice. 
For  whatever  reason  open  discussion  is  burked,  even 
for  the  reason  of  charity,  we  only  put  off  the  evil 
day,  and  charity  so  used  may  be  compared  to  the 
charity  which  refuses  to  take  action  in  any  other 
critical  problem  of  increasing  gravity.  The  charity 
which  hesitates  to  control  the  supplies  of  a  spend- 
thrift, or  to  wage  a  defensive  war  in  a  just  cause, 
or  to  defend  an  oppressed  man  at  the  risk  of 
quarrelling  with  his  oppressor,  is  a  charity  mis- 
directed. 

But,  as  I  have  said,  with  much  the  greater  part 
of  men  who  plead  this  motive  the  plea  is,  if  they 
would  only  examine  their  own  consciences,  found  to 
be  false.  And  the  test  of  its  falsity  will  be  apparent 
when  the  convention  slackens.  When  it  is  no 
longer  conventional  to  avoid  all  mention  of  Jews, 
how  many  will  remain  silent  merely  from  the  love 
of  their  fellow-men  ?  One  might  go  further  and 
say  that  when  the  convention  has  gone,  any  need 
for  this  kind  of  charity  will  go  with  it.  There  is 
an  exception,  of  course,  in  the  case  of  the  man 
whose  dislike  of  Jews  is  so  violent  that  he  fears 
himself  if  he  gives  any  rein  to  his  tongue.  That 
mania  is  exceptional ;  but  where  it  is  found  certainly 
its  victim  will  do  well  to  keep  silence.  If  a  man 
cannot  mention  the  Hebrew  alphabet  without  a 
sneer,  or  the  economics  of  Ricardo  without  betray- 
ing his  ill  feeling  for  Ricardo' s  lineage,  then 
certainly  he  had  better  hold  his  tongue  when  Jews 
are  there.  So,  too,  a  Frenchman  who  raves  against 
the  English  had  far  better  not  discuss  the  British 


262  THE  JEWS 

Constitution  or  the  genius  of  Newton  in  any  society 
where  an  Englishman  may  be  present. 

There  remains  the  chief  obstacle — that  of  fear. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  strongest  force  still  re- 
straining an  expression  of  hostility  to  the  Jew  is  fear. 

In  a  sense,  of  course,  there  is  a  "  fear  "  of  breaking 
convention — but  that  is  fear  only  in  metaphor. 
I  mean  not  this,  but  the  very  real  dread  of  con- 
sequences: the  feeling  that  an  expression  of 
hostility  to  Jewish  power  may  bring  definite  evils 
on  the  individual  guilty  of  it,  and  a  panic  lest  those 
evils  should  fall  upon  him.  How  strong  this  feeling 
is,  anyone  can  testify  who  has  explored,  as  I  have, 
this  most  insistent  of  modern  political  ills;  and 
doubtless  the  greater  part  of  my  non- Jewish  readers 
will  recall  examples  to  the  point. 

It  is  a  fear  of  two  consequences,  social  and 
economic,  and  even  of  both  combined.  Men  dread 
lest  hostility  to  the  Jew  Domination  should  bring 
them  into  the  grip  of  some  unknown  but  suspected 
world-wide  power — some  would  call  it  a  conspiracy 
— which  can  destroy  the  individual  who  shall  be 
so  rash  as  to  challenge  it.  Some  perhaps  have 
gone  to  the  length — the  insane  length — of  reading 
the  word  "destroy"  in  its  literal  sense  and  of 
fearing  for  their  lives.  Such  an  illusion  is  laughable. 
But  very  many  more  are  affected  by  the  reasonable 
conception  that  they  will  have  against  them,  if  they 
provoke  it,  an  intelligent,  combined  action  which 
they  cannot  meet  because  there  is  no  organization 
upon  their  side :  because  it  is  international ; 
because  there  is  behind  it  a  great  intensity  of 
feeling;  because  through  finance  it  controls  the 
political  machines  of  all  the  nations,  because  it  is 
all-powerful  in  the  Press — and  so  forth. 


OUR  DUTY  263 

They  dread,  I  say,  the  social  consequences.  They 
also  (and  that  with  more  definition  and  more  sense) 
dread  tlie  economic  consequences,  Tliey  recognize 
(they  also  exaggerate)  the  grip  of  the  Jew  over 
finance.  They  conceive  that  if  they  speak  they  will 
be  dragged  down,  their  enterprises  ruined,  their 
credit  dissolved.  And  that  is  the  most  powerful 
instrument  which  can  be  brought  to  bear.  When 
supernatural  motives  disappear  the  strongest 
motive  remaining  after  appetite  is  avarice;  and 
avarice  is  more  universal  than  appetite  and  more 
continuous.  Nor  is  it  only  avarice  which  is  at 
work  here,  but  also  the  respectable  desire  for 
security.  There  are  to-day  innumerable  men  who 
would  express  publicly  on  Jews  what  they  con- 
tinually express  in  private,  but  who  conceal  their 
feelings  for  fear  that  their  salaries  may  be  lost  or 
their  modest  enterprises  wrecked,  their  investments 
lowered,  and  their  position  ruined.  Above  them 
are  a  lesser  number,  equally  convinced  that  their 
large  fortunes  would  be  in  peril  were  they  so  to  act. 

The  characteristic  of  all  this  feeling  is  two- 
fold. In  the  first  place,  as  w^ould  seem  to  be  the 
case  with  convention,  though  in  a  much  greater 
degree,  it  dams  up  and  enormously  increases  the 
latent  force  of  anger  against  Jewish  power  both 
real  and  imaginary.  It  is  like  the  piling  up  of  a 
head  of  water  when  a  river  valley  is  obstructed,  or 
like  the  introducing  of  resistance  into  an  electric 
current.  The  suppression  of  resentment,  though 
that  suppression  is  the  act  of  the  men  who  them- 
selves feel  the  resentment  and  not  directly  of  their 
opponents,  is  a  fierce  irritant  and  accounts  for  the 
high  pressure  at  which  attack  escapes  when  once 
it  is  loosened. 


264  THE  JEWS 

I  speak  only  of  hostility  and  of  attack,  for  it  is 
in  these  least  rational  examples  that  the  strength 
of  the  thing  is  to  be  found.  But  it  applies  also  to 
mere  discussion.  There  is  hardly  anyone  to-day 
who  does  not  desire  to  discuss  as  an  urgent  political 
problem  the  present  position,  the  present  power, 
the  present  disabilities,  the  present  claims  of  Israel. 
But  for  one  that  will  openly  discuss  these  things 
there  are  ten  who,  in  varying  degrees,  forbid  them- 
selves so  plain  a  freedom  of  speech  in  dread  of  what 
consequences  might  follow.  It  has,  like  all  panic, 
a  ridiculous  element.  It  is  informed  by  the  most 
absurd  illusions ;  it  suffers  from  grotesque  imagin- 
ings and  phantasms.  In  some  this  dread  of  the 
Jewish  power  has  very  plainly  passed  the  line  which 
divides  the  stable  from  the  unstable  mind  and  even 
the  sane  from  the  insane.  But  it  is  none  the  less 
a  formidable  element  in  our  problem.  This 
obstacle,  much  more  than  that  of  convention,  bears 
a  character  of  rigidity.  It  works  for  a  certain 
time,  then  it  breaks  down  and  releases  a  flood. 

That  is  why  the  first  expressions  of  hostility  in 
our  time  were  so  exaggerated  and  ill- proportioned. 
That  is  why  so  many  of  them  were  plainly  mad. 
This  very  character  of  exaggeration,  this  very 
wildness  in  proportion,  rendered  those  against 
whom  the  attack  was  delivered  more  contemptuous 
of  it  than  they  should  have  been. 

The  forerunners  of  the  present  movement — I 
mean,  of  the  movement  hostile  to  Israel — were  not 
calculated  to  excite  the  respect  of  their  opponent 
or  even  to  carry  with  them  the  men  on  their  own 
side.  They  lacked  that  "  common"  sense  which  is 
the  first  quality  of  leadership.  For  the  power  of 
leadership  implies  a  soul  in  common  with  those 


OUR  DUTY  266 

who  are  led.  The  enthusiast  can  lead  permanently, 
but  the  extravagant  man  never  for  long. 

I  say  that  these  first  attacks  were  on  that  account 
despised:  they  were  unduly  despised  by  those 
whom  they  menaced. 

There  lay  in  reserve  behind  all  the  exaggeration 
and  wildness  a  great  bulk  of  very  diflterent  opinion ; 
the  opinion  of  men  normal  in  their  appreciation 
of  values  and  of  proportion,  not  given  to  "  seeing 
things,"  fully  in  touch  with  reality ;  men  who  know 
that  they  have  hitherto  only  been  silent  through 
the  action  of  fear,  who  despise  themselves  on  that 
account  and  who  are  the  more  ready  to  act.  For 
the  sense  of  fear  not  only  degrades  but  angers: 
at  least  in  our  race.  The  European  who  admits  to 
himself  that  he  has  restrained  an  instinct  not  from 
religion,  nor  from  a  general  sense  of  right,  but  from 
cowardice,  is  always  angry  with  himself  and  awaits 
the  moment  when  he  can  take  his  own  revenge 
upon  his  own  past  and  clear  himself  of  reproach 
in  his  own  eyes. 

Herein  lies  the  peril  to  Israel  of  such  a  state  of 
affairs.  But  with  that  I  am  not  here  concerned. 
I  am  only  concerned  with  its  effect  upon  ourselves. 
So  long  as  we  degrade  ourselves,  so  long  as  we 
humiliate  ourselves  by  our  own  cow^ardice,  so  long 
as  we  shirk  all  reasonable  discussion,  let  alone  all 
expression  of  hostility  because  we  dread  the  con- 
sequences at  the  hands  of  our  opponents,  so  long 
there  are  present  in  rising  intensity  two  evil  things : 
first,  the  postponement  of  the  right  solution ; 
secondly,  the  turning  of  a  reasoned  policy  into  mere 
hatred  with  all  the  consequences  that  flow  from 
such  evil  emotion. 

The  longer  we  maintain  whatever  remains  of  that 


266  THE  JEWS 

barrier  to  free  speech  (happily  it  is  already  crumb- 
ling) the  longer  do  we  produce  the  two  fatal  results 
of  postponing  justice  and  of  creating  enmity.  The 
destruction  of  that  barrier,  the  ridding  of  ourselves 
of  fear  in  the  matter,  is^  as  is  always  the  case  in 
the  exercising  of  this  unmanly  thing,  a  matter  for 
individual  effort.  As  the  proverb  goes,  "  Some  one 
must  bell  the  cat,"  which  is  another  way  of  saying 
that  if  each  man  waits  upon  his  neighbour,  things 
will  only  grow  worse  and  worse. 

It  is  for  each  in  his  place,  before  it  is  too  late,  to 
approach  the  Jewish  problem  and  to  discuss  it 
openly ;  to  preface  that  discussion  by  a  frank  interest 
and  a  general  expression  upon  all  those  things 
in  the  minority  which  directly  concern  its  relations 
with  the  majority;  to  deal  with  the  Jewish  nation 
exactly  as  one  would  with  any  other. 

It  used  to  be  a  dictum  in  those  who  pleaded  a 
lifetime  ago  for  the  open  criticism  of  Scripture,  that 
"  the  Bible  should  be  approached  like  any  other 
book."  1  The  result  is  not  of  good  augury  to  my 
present  argument  and  I  rather  dread  the  parallel ; 
but  since  the  phrase  is  well,  known  I  will  use  it  as  a 
model.  It  is  time,  I  say,  to  be  rid  of  treating  the 
Jewish  nation  as  something  closed,  mysterious  and 
secret.  Let  us  treat  it ' '  like  any  other  nation. ' '  It 
is  no  wonder  if  men,  moved  by  nothing  but  a  blind 
hatred,  feel  some  hesitation  upon  the  consequence 
of  that  hatred.  But  I  am  convinced  that  if  we  on 
our  side  get  rid  of  this  absurd  modern  fear,  take  the 

^  I  beg  leave  to  introduce  an  anecdote.  An  undergraduate 
once  said  to  Dr.  Jowett,  the  Master  of  Balliol,  "  I  take  up 
the  Gospels  and  treat  them  as  an  ordinary  book."  The 
Master  answered  :  "  Did  you  not  find  them  a  very  extra- 
ordinary book  ?  "  So  it  will  prove,  I  think,  with  the  fascina- 
tion of  Israel. 


OUR  DUTY  267 

Jew  in  liis  right,  proportions,  rid  our  mind  of 
exaggeration  in  liis  regard — especially  of  the  con- 
ception of  some  inhuman  ability  capable  of  conduct- 
ing a  plot  of  diabolical  ingenuity  and  magnitude — 
we  shall  be  met  from  the  other  side. 

The  Jews  are  not  the  only  force  which  is  inter- 
national nor  the  only  international  force  the  dread 
of  which  has  disturbed  men's  judgments.  They 
are  not  the  only  international  force  which  has  some 
degree  of  organization  and  cohesion.  If  you  desire 
to  vent  your  active  dislike  of  the  Scotch  or  of  the 
Irish  you  must  be  prepared  for  a  certain  amount 
of  Scotch  or  Irish  hostility.  You  will  come  across 
something  of  an  organization  and  suffer  accord- 
ingly ;  but  if  you  cherish  the  conception  of  a  vast 
subterranean  force,  Scotch  or  Irish,  watching  you 
with  a  malignant  power  and  capable  of  your  destruc- 
tion, you  are,  I  think,  out  of  the  real  world. 

If  you  desire  to  vent  your  active  dislike  of  the 
Catholic  Church  you  will  find  ubiquitous  opposi- 
tion. But  if  you  conclude  from  this  that  you  are 
at  grips  with  a  monster  then  you  are  out  of  touch 
with  reality. 

So  it  is,  surely,  with  this  dread  of  the  Jewish 
power,  which  has  sullied  so  many  men's  minds, 
postponed  the  right  discussion  of  the  problem  and 
nourished  ill-ease  everywhere.  If  we  simply 
act  as  though  that  dread  were  despicable  like  any 
other  dread,  and  turned  to  perfectly  open  discussion 
of  the  whole  affair,  even  to  an  open  expression  of 
hostility  where  hostility  is  deserved,  we  shall  be 
the  better  for  it.  In  any  case  it  is  our  duty  to 
ourselves  as  well  as  to  the  State  to  get  rid  of  fear 
in  the  business,  for  until  we  are  rid  of  it  no 
advance  towards  a  solution  can  be  made. 


THEIR  DUTY 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THEIR  DUTY 

Where  positive  causes  have  been  found  for  an 
evil  it  is  obvious  that  the  cure  of  that  evil  consists 
in  the  removal  of  the  causes,  in  so  far  as  they  can 
be  removed. 

In  the  particular  case  of  the  friction  between  the 
Jewish  community  and  their  hosts  the  causes  of 
that  friction  are  the  foolish  and  dangerous  habit  of 
secrecy  and  the  irritating  expression  of  superiority. 
The  causes  the  Jew  can  remove  if  he  will.  The 
matter  is  in  his  own  hands:  we  can  do  nothing: 
he  can  do  everything. 

But  beyond  this  negative  duty  which  is  incum- 
bent upon  the  Jews  if  they  would  achieve  a  peaceful 
issue  of  the  perils  which  menace  their  future,  there 
is  a  positive  action  also  incumbent  upon  them. 
They  must  foster,  they  must  even  propose,  institu- 
tions which  will  the  better  mark  them  off  from  a 
society  not  their  own  and  restore  to  them  the  dignity 
of  a  nation.  I  shall  in  the  last  chapter  of  this 
book  contend  that  the  policy  leading  to  a  solution 
must  repose  not  upon  direct  laws  of  our  own  imagin- 
ing, not  upon  reactions  which  will  almost  certainly 
prove  oppressive,  and  almost  certainly  be  evaded, 
but  upon  a  general  spirit  recognizing  the  separate 
nationality  of  the  Jews.     But  though  this  is  true  of 

271 


272  THE  JEWS 

every  Christian  Western  State  in  which  they  find 
themselves,  it  is  not  true  of  their  own  nation. 
They  on  their  side  may  well  come  forward  with 
propositions  which  they  have  the  capacity  for 
making,  because  they  will  know  how  to  frame  them 
(as  we  cannot)  after  a  fashion  consistent  with  their 
own  dignity  and  their  own  tradition.  There  is  a 
beginning  of  such  things  already  present  in  the 
Jewish  schools,  the  Jewish  guardians  and  the  con- 
siderable separate  organization  which  the  Jews 
have  openly  set  up  for  their  community  in  this 
country.    These  beginnings  have  but  to  be  extended. 

Those  who  are  openly  hostile  to  Jews  will  say 
that  any  proposals  coming  from  their  side  will  con- 
ceal a  trap.  "  This  people  "  (they  say)  "  will  always 
suggest  things  which  will  seem  innocent  enough  and 
apparently  do  no  more  than  define  their  position 
plainly  for  the  future ;  but  we  shall  find  ourselves 
caught  in  an  obligation  and  the  Jews  more  our 
masters  than  ever.  They  will,"  say  these  objectors, 
"  remain  as  they  are  to-day,  and  while  they  claim 
every  privilege  as  a  separate  community,  they  will 
also  insist  upon  the  full  citizenship  which  is  incom- 
patible with  this  attitude.  We  shall  find  that, 
whatever  institutions  we  ask  them  to  frame,  those 
institutions  will  work  not  only  in  their  favour  but 
also  heavily  against  us." 

I  doubt  it.  The  special  Jewish  institutions 
already  at  work  have  no  such  effect.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  already  relieve  the  strain.  One  of  those 
institutions,  for  instance,  is  the  Jewish  press :  the 
newspapers  specially  devoted  to  Jewish  interests 
and  acting  as  spokesmen  for  Jewish  ideas.  They 
are  not  always  as  polite  as  they  might  be.  I  have 
had  myself  at  times  to  lodge  a  complaint  against  the 


THEIR  DUTY  273 

way  in  which  they  have  treated  sincere  efforts  for 
the  settlement  of  our  difiiculties  and  an  honest 
attempt  at  finding  a  way  out.  They  liave  left  a 
handle  to  their  enemies  sometimes  by  too  insistent 
or,  as  those  enemies  would  call  it,  too  arrogant  a 
claim,  and  they  do  write  now  and  then  as  though  we, 
the  vast  majority,  had  no  rights  and  the  only  thing 
worth  considering  was  the  advancement  of  their  own 
people. 

But,  after  all,  it  would  be  absurd  to  expect 
an}i;hing  else.  A  small  minority  vigorously  fighting 
its  own  hand  must  exaggerate  its  claim;  an  organism 
defending  itself  against  very  heavy  pressure  from 
without  cannot  but  appear  aggressive,  and  I  shall 
always  maintain  that  the  presence  of  an  openly 
Jewish  institution  speaking  for  Jewish  interests,  no 
matter  how  insistently,  is  an  excellent  thing.  It 
presents  a  healthy  contrast  with  the  converse 
attempt  to  present  Jewish  arguments  under  the 
cover  of  neutrality,  and  to  spread  Jewish  ideas 
anon}Tnously  through  what  are  very  far  from 
being  neutral  agents. 

If  I  be  asked  what  institutions  I  have  in  mind  I 
can  only  repeat  that  it  is  for  the  Jews  themselves 
to  make  the  first  proposal,  but  I  suggest  an 
extension  of  the  system,  which  is  already  present  in 
embryo,  whereby  disputes  between  Jews  shall  be 
arbitrated  before  a  Jewish  tribunal.  Not  only  its 
extension  but  its  confirmation  at  the  request  of  the 
Jews  themselves,  might  be  a  good  thing.  It  would 
also  not  be  a  bad  thing  if — some  time  hence  when 
things  were  ripe  for  the  change — disputes  between 
Jews  and  non- Jews  could  be  tried  in  Courts  where 
the  special  character  of  such  disputes,  the  distinctive 
difference  between  them  and  disputes  between  the 


274  THE  JEWS 

fellow- citizens  of  the  country  in  whicli  they  live, 
should  come  before  tribunals  of  a  mixed  character. 
To  attempt  this  to-day  would,  of  course,  be  a  very 
new  departure  in  procedure,  indeed  a  revolutionary 
one ;  and  there  is  no  prospect  of  it  for  a  long  while ; 
but  with  the  growing  number  among  us,  and  the 
growing  influence,  of  Jews  it  will,  I  think,  when  it 
does  come  at  last,  be  of  advantage  to  both  parties. 
It  would  be  fatal  if  it  were  imposed  upon  them.  It 
would  not  be  accepted.  It  would  not  work.  But  if 
it  were  suggested  by  the  Jewish  community  spon- 
taneously, and  started  and  developed  by  them,  it 
would  succeed.  And  it  would  add  a  great  deal  to  the 
relief  already  experienced  for  the  functioning  of  the 
other  institutions  I  have  mentioned. 

There  is  little  more  to  be  said  under  this  head. 
Apart  from  the  duty  of  open  dealing  and  this 
specific  policy  of  fostering  separate  institutions  we 
have  no  claim  to  press. 

All  the  main  part  of  the  mutual  Duty  is  on  our 
side.  Therefore  have  I  given  it  the  space  it  seems  to 
deserve  and  confined  to  no  more  than  these  few 
lines  correlative  suggestions  for  those  who,  after  all, 
are  not  responsible  to  us  for  their  actions  and  may 
properly  resent  the  airing  of  our  views  on  the  do- 
mestic details  of  their  alien  organization. 


VARIOUS  THEORIES 


CHAPTER  XIV 

VARIOUS  THEORIES 

Before  approaching  my  conclusion  it  may  be  well 
to  review  certain  subsidiary  theories  which  I  have 
not  hitherto  touched  in  my  discussion,  because  they 
stand  apart  from  its  argument. 

There  is  a  whole  group  of  historical  and  other 
theories  upon  the  position  of  the  Jews  which  either 
imply  that  there  is  no  problem,  or  if  there  is  one  that 
it  cannot  be  solved,  or  even  that  if  there  is  a  problem 
it  is  of  a  sort  that  does  not  need  solution,  because 
that  solution  would  be  of  no  practical  value. 

There  come  in  the  first  place  those  theories  upon 
the  international  position  of  the  Jews  which  are 
frankly  non- rational,  and  which  vary  from  those 
which  may  be  defended  with  some  show  of  reason 
from  the  history  of  the  past,  to  those  which  are 
wholly  imaginary.  None  of  these,  even  though 
some  one  of  them  should  be  true,  can  find  much 
place  here  because  none  lends  itself  to  discussion. 

Thus  there  is  the  conception  of  a  curse;  the 
conception  that  Israel  must,  until  its  conversion, 
suffer  a  perpetual  pilgrimage  and  perpetual  hos- 
tility. It  is  a  statement  bound  up  with  that  other 
popular  prophecy  that  in  the  last  days  Israel  will  be 
reconciled  with  the  Universal  Church.  Those  who 
have  these  ideas  at  the  back  of  their  minds  (they  are 

277 


278  THE  JEWS 

more  numerous  than  modern  thought  would  like  to 
admit) ,  at  heart  despair  of  any  solution,  and  would 
not  attempt  to  urge  it  with  any  hope  of  success. 
They  say,  "  The  thing  is  fated  and  must  continue." 
But  even  they,  I  think,,  must  admit  that  just  as 
philosophy  admits  a  paradox  of  determination  and 
free  will,  so  political  effort  must  admit  a  paradox  of 
foreseen  failures  and  our  duty,  in  spite  of  them,  to 
aim  at  a  political  good. 

Whether  it  be  indeed  true  or  not,  that  recon- 
ciliation is  impossible  and  that  in  the  long  run  the 
quarrel  must  drag  itself  out,  it  is  certainly  pro- 
foundly immoral  to  look  on  at  the  spectacle  with  no 
attempt  to  ameliorate  its  evils. 

There  is  again  the  theory  (which  I  mention  in 
passing  and  leave  to  its  adherents)  that  the  British 
and  the  Jews  are  in  some  way  mysteriously  allied  by 
Providence,  so  that  any  solution  which  does  not  give 
the  fullest  satisfaction  to  Israel  (no  matter  at  what 
cost  to  poor  Japhet)  is  treason.  These  people 
mystically  regard  Britain  as  the  handmaid  of  Jewry, 
and  there  is  a  section  of  them  who  further  regard 
their  fellow-countrymen  as  the  ten  lost  tribes.  I 
have  in  my  library  some  specimens  of  their  litera- 
ture. 

There  is  an  opposite  and,  to  me,  detestable  theory 
(but  I  must  mention  it  because  it  exists),  that  the 
antagonism  hitherto  found  perpetually,  whether 
latent  or  active,  between  this  people  and  the  world 
about  them  is  the  use  of  the  one  as  a  necessary  and 
divine  oppressor  of  the  other.  To  those  who  hold 
such  a  theory  I  can  only  reply  that  two  can  play 
at  that  game,  and  it  certainly  absolves  those  whom 
they  would  oppress  from  any  obligation  whatever  of 
seeking  a  solution  on  their  side.     If  a  man  thinks  he 


VAEIOUS  THEORIES  279 

can  do  harm  to  Israel  wantonly,  without  suffering 
the  reproaches  of  his  own  conscience,  he  is  in  error ; 
and  I  confess  that  were  I  free  (as  I  am  not  in  a  book 
of  discussion  and  argument)  to  indulge  in  mere 
affirmation  I  should  be  inclined  to  say  that  those 
who  set  out  with  this  remarkable  object  in  view  will 
catch  a  Tartar. 

There  is  the  opposite  theory  that  a  special  and 
Divine  protection  is  still  exercised,  not  only  for  the 
preservation  of  the  Jews  but  for  judgment  upon 
their  enemies.  That  theory,  I  think,  lies  at  the  back 
of  many  a  Jewish  action  in  history  and  of  much 
Jewish  policy  to-day.  Non- rational,  religious  in 
origin,  it  is,  I  fancy,  to  very  many  of  the  race  which 
has  suffered  so  much,  a  consolation  and  a  support. 

Now  all  these  non- rational  theories  (I  use  the 
word  without  any  bad  connotation:  the  non- 
rational — what  is  often  inaccurately  called  the 
mystical — attitude  towards  any  problem  may  well 
be  more  practical  than  the  rational  approach  to  it) 
I  leave  on  one  side  as  improper  to  rational  discussion. 

I  have  heard  it  maintained,  again,  by  both  parties 
to  this  debate,  that  the  presence  of  an  alien  force, 
migratory,  intense,  full  of  tradition,  experience  and 
cohesion,  was  essential  to  the  height  and  the  activity 
of  our  own  civilization. 

These  are  not  content  to  discover  individual 
instances  of  Jewish  excellence  in  the  mass  around 
them,  or  to  extend  the  renown  of  individual  Jewish 
genius.  They  are  rather  concerned  with  the  general 
proposition  that  some  such  flux  is  necessary  to  the 
full  action  of  a  high  and  diverse  culture.  They  tell 
us  that  but  for  the  Jew  the  civilization  of  Europe 
would  have  grown  torpid,  would  have  settled  into  a 
fixed  groove,  incapable  of  change  and  of  creative 


\s 


280  THE  JEWS 

progress.  The  Jew,  by  this  theory,  is  regarded  as  a 
sort  of  activating  principle,  who,  whether  as  an 
irritant  at  the  worst,  or  an  inspiration  at  the  best, 
keeps  all  our  European  life  agog,  and  is  necessary  to 
its  continuous  business.  These  also  incline  to  see 
the  Jew  at  the  origin  of  every  great  movement  in 
European  thought.  They  see  him  indirectly  pro- 
ducing the  vast  transformation  of  the  Eoman  Em- 
pire from  a  pagan,  not  indeed  to  a  Jew  but  to  a 
Christian,  that  is  (in  their  eyes)  to  an  Oriental  mood. 
They  see  the  Jew  at  the  root  of  the  great  revolu- 
tionary philosophy  which  springs  from  the  eleventh 
century  and  reaches  its  culmination  in  the  great 
scholastics  of  the  thirteenth.  They  insist  upon  the 
name  of  Averroes  (Ibn  Roshd),  the  philosopher  of 
the  twelfth  century,  the  Kadi  of  Cordova :  the 
exponent  of  Aristotle,  the  expositor — whom  the 
Jews  preserved :  upon  the  great  Moses  ben  Maimon, 
our  Maimonides.  These  also  put  Nicolas  de  Lyra 
at  the  root  of  the  Reformation :  '^  Si  Lyra  non 
lyrasset  Luther  non  saltasset.^''  But  I  may  remind 
them  that  the  Jewish  character  of  this  man  is  at 
least  doubtful,  that  he  was  of  the  religious  Orders  of 
Christendom. 

These  also  will  certainly  and  with  some  reason 
ascribe  to  Jewish  influence  the  great  economic 
revolution  of  the  seventeenth  century,  which  has 
been  followed  by  so  vast  an  extension  of  wealth  and 
of  population,  though  hardly  of  human  happiness. 

Now  for  all  this  there  is  certainly  something  to 
be  said  as  an  aspect  of  historical  truth.  How  far 
it  may  be  extended  to  cover,  as  its  exponents  would 
make  it  cover,  the  whole  historical  field,  may  be 
debated,  but  I  would  ask  my  readers  to  consider 
what  change  we  should  have  seen  in  the  develop- 


VARIOUS  THEORIES  281 

ment  of  Europe  if  by  some  magical  instrument 
Jewish  influence  had  been  upon  some  one  date 
removed.  It  is  a  theory  fascinating,  in  a  way 
applicable,  and  arresting.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  not 
nonsense. 

It  is  particularly  true  tliat  something  in 
the  continuous  exercise  of  analysis  by  the  Jewish 
intelligence  perpetually  moves  European  intelli- 
gence to  action — The  great  disputations  of  the 
Early  Middle  Ages  were,  largely,  either  directly 
disputations  with  Jews  or  disputations  provoked  by 
the  intellectual  attitude  of  the  Jew;  and  the  Jew, 
in  the  famous  name  of  Spinoza,  stands  at  the  origin 
of  that  merely  natural,  that  Lucretian  interpreta- 
tion of  the  world  which  continued  through  Des- 
cartes to  its  great  expansion  in  the  present  day. 
You  find  that  element  in  economics  as  you  do  in 
philosophy,  in  political  science  as  you  do  in  econo- 
mics; and,  talking  of  economics,  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  the  greatest  name  at  the  foundation 
of  modern  economic  science  is  the  name  of  a  Jew, 
Ricardo,  while  the  most  prominent  name  in  the 
development  of  its  most  prominent  direct  applica- 
tion is  also  a  Jewish  name — the  name  of  Karl  Marx. 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  any  one  of  these 
names  recalls,  side  by  side  with  its  Jewish  origin, 
an  aloofness  from  the  general  community  of  the 
Jews.  That  community,  I  think  it  is  fair  to  say, 
abandoned  Spinoza;  Ricardo  and,  I  believe,  Karl 
Marx  were  alien  to  the  national  religion,  and  the 
latter  married  out  of  his  people  and  exercised  his 
enormous  influence  extraneously  to  the  blood  from 
which  his  family  sprang.  For  though  it  is  true  that 
the  direction,  the  staff  of  Communism  is  Jewish  ,yet 
its  convinced  adherents  are  in  the  mass  of  our  blood. 


282  THE  JEWS 

And  in  that  connection  I  am  reminded  of  another 
theory  or  fact  attaching  to  the  history  of  Israel, 
which  is  that  the  intellectual  independence  of  the 
Jew  has  been  as  marked  throughout  the  ages  as  his 
solidarity.  There  are  many,  I  know,  of  that  nation 
who  regard  such  exceptions  as  vagaries  and  almost 
condemn  them  as  traitors ;  yet  they  are  no  small 
asset  to  the  reputation  of  their  people  and  their 
names,  however  much  they  may  be  repudiated  by 
their  compatriots,  shed  lustre  upon  the  whole  body 
from  which  they  sprang.  These  include  (let  it  be 
remembered)  not  only  the"  sceptical"  philosophers, 
not  only  the  materialists,  but  also  those  extra- 
ordinary exceptions  who  have  lent  the  vigour,  the 
tenacity  and  the  lustre  of  the  Jewish  intellect  to  the 
service  of  the  Catholic  Church.  I  make  bold  to  say 
that  in  no  one  of  the  Faith  has  there  been  more 
devotion  than  in  those  who,  like  Eatisbonne  (and 
he  was  but  one  among  many),  have  put  such 
qualities  at  the  service  of  what  they  have  dis- 
covered to  be  alone  divine.  A  cynic  might  add 
St.  Paul,  but,  for  that  matter,  the  whole  origin  of 
the  Church  was  intermixed  with  the  intense  indivi- 
dual efforts  of  such  men. 

In  this  connection  also  every  wise  man  will  admit 
that  there  is  no  greater  error  than  to  exaggerate  the 
consciousness  of  Jewish  action  whether  the  error 
proceed  from  those  who  admire  or  who  detest  it. 
To  hear  their  modern  opponents  talk  one  might 
imagine  that  the  Jewish  people  formed  a  small 
club  of  which  every  member  knew  every  other  while 
each  worked  in  the  unison  of  a  disciplined  body. 
That  aberration  I  have  dealt  with  more  than  once 
upon  former  pages.  The  truth  is  that  no  nation  on 
earth  presents  so  many  surprising  exceptions  to 


VARIOUS  THEORIES  283 

its  general  action  as  does  this  nation,  and  that  no 
nation  on  earth,  when  it  moves  in  one  general 
direction,  as  it  often  does,  is  actuated  hy  a  common 
motive  less  conscious.  We  who  stand  outside  the 
Jewish  body  may  mark  its  cohesion,  and  will  mark 
it,  I  hope,  to  its  honour;  but  its  own  members 
complain  rather  of  its  lack  of  cohesion.  I  have 
heard  them  complain — I  know  not  how  often — of 
the  way  in  which  the  wealthier  Jews  left  their 
society  for  that  of  an  alien  body,  sneered  at  the 
general  body  of  Israel,  and  remained  indifferent  to 
the  common  cry  of  the  race.  It  is  this  unconscious- 
ness in  action,  this  frequent  replacement  of  motive 
by  instinct  which  accounts  for  what  all  observers 
have  noticed,  especially  in  times  of  persecution.  I 
mean  the  bewilderment  of  the  oppressed  at  the 
action  of  their  oppressors. 

I  remember  once  listening  to  a  most  eloquent 
speech  delivered  in  the  course  of  a  debate  in  which, 
with  that  long  recollection  which  is  characteristic 
of  his  people,  an  Israelite  passionately  declaimed  the 
gratitude  of  that  people  to  St.  Bernard  who  saved 
their  remnant  upon  the  Rhine  from  the  popular 
fury.  I  remember  also  how  another  in  a  debate 
(for  I  have  attended  many  such  up  and  down  the 
country  and  have  heard  from  as  many  aspects  as 
possible  what  the  Jewish  attitude  towards  us  is) 
stated  simply,  in  reply  to  my  description  of  the 
Jewish  financial  position  in  this  country  after  the 
Conquest:  "Your  cathedral  and  your  abbeys 
and  even  your  castles  were  built  with  our  money." 
The  phrase  was  significant  of  the  w^ay  in  which 
what  the  English  community  of  the  time  regarded 
as  a  tolerated  abuse,  those  fortunes  which  theij 
never  thought  of  as  Jewish  at  all,  but  as  moneys 


284  THE  JEWS 

temporarily  unjustly  wrung  from  the  people  at 
large,  were  regarded  in  contemporary  Jewry  as 
private  property  legitimately  acquired,  held  in  full 
possession. 

I  could  wish  in  this  connection  that  some  learned 
Jew  would  produce  a  History  of  Europe  from  the 
point  of  view  of  his  people:  a  short  textbook,  I 
mean,  intended  for  our  consumption ;  to  show  us 
ourselves  from  a  standpoint  very  different  from  our 
own.  It  may  be  that  such  a  book  exists.  I  am 
certain  it  would  be  more  useful  than  those  indirect 
attacks  (for  they  are  attacks)  upon  the  Christian 
tradition  which  pretend  to  a  spirit  of  impartiality 
but  are  none  the  less  hostile  to  that  tradition  in 
every  line.  I  would  much  rather  read  the  story 
of  Europe  as  it  was  seen  by  a  practising  Jewish 
scholar  than  a  so-called  impartial  and  agnostic 
account  which  grotesquely  represents  the  Church 
as  something  external  to  the  body  of  Europe  and 
even  inimical  to  it. 

In  this  connection  also  we  should  have  (what  now 
we  lack),  and  that  is  a  conspectus  of  the  Jewish 
action  over  Christendom  and  Islam  combined. 
We  are  aware  of  the  tolerance,  or  rather  favour, 
displayed  to  their  Jewish  subjects  by  the  Moham- 
medans of  Spain.  It  was  neither  universal  nor 
continuous.  What  we  do  not  sufficiently  hear, 
what  we  have  to  piece  together  from  chance 
allusions,  is  the  connection  between  the  Moorish 
Jews,  before  and  during  the  Reconquista,  and  their 
fellows  to  the  north. 

Before  I  leave  these  cursory  and  sporadic  notes 
on  what  I  have  called  the  "  theories"  upon  our 
problem,  I  should  mention  one  which  would  unhap- 
pily  seem  to  have  acquired  widespread   support 


VARIOUS  TIIEORIES  285 

to-day  and  which  is  surely  the  least  satisfactory  of 
all — even  less  satisfactory  than  the  now  dying 
fiction  which  pretended  that  the  Jewish  nation 
was  not  present  in  our  midst,  but  consisted  only 
of  a  mass  of  individuals  already  absorbed  by  their 
alien  surroundings.  I  mean  the  theory  that  it  is 
possible  to  continue  in  a  sort  of  simmering  atmo- 
sphere of  partial  repression,  with  the  Jew  treated 
as  something  alien  and  hostile,  yet  his  presence 
unceasingly  tolerated.  That  would  seem  to  be 
the  imperfect  conclusion  implied,  if  not  stated,  in 
a  hundred  modern  pamphlets  and  discussions,  the 
authors  of  which  repudiate  the  name  of  Anti- 
Semite  though  they  sympathize  apparently  with 
action  even  less  logical  than  the  politics  of  the 
Anti-  Semite.  There  is  no  such  equilibrium  possible, 
even  if  its  establishment  were  as  moral  as  it  is  in 
fact  immoral.  If  a  frank  solution  be  not  found, 
nothing  firm  can  be  established.  All  we  shall  be 
establishing  will  be  a  violent  and  successive  fluctua- 
tion. It  is  impossible  to  maintain  an  attitude 
permanently  hostile  to  one's  neighbour,  yet  count 
on  that  hostility  remaining  permanently  repressed. 
You  fall  inevitably  along  the  slope  of  such  a  ten- 
dency into  those  excesses  which  it  should  be  our 
whole  object  to  condemn,  to  foresee  and  to  prevent. 

You  cannot  continue,  as  so  many  modern  men 
seem,  from  their  conversation,  to  wish,  with  political 
equality  on  the  one  side  and  a  living  spirit  of  enmity 
upon  the  other.  You  cannot  get  peace  by  giving 
a  mere  legal  definition  to  the  status  of  a  minority, 
which  is  also  necessarily  your  neighbour,  and 
refusing  a  social  action  consonant  with  the  legal 
definition.  If  you  try  to  do  that  you  are  trying 
to  do  two  things,  one  of  which  will  destroy  the 


286  THE  JEWS 

other.  No  one  can  doubt  which  will  be  victorious 
in  a  conflict  between  a  living  sentient  motive  and 
a  mere  definition  in  public  law. 

One  attitude  towards  the  question  which  I  have 
heard  fairly  often  in  the  mouths  of  Jews  and  seen 
in  their  writings  is  something  like  this :  "  Our 
affairs  have  nothing  to  do  with  people  outside  our 
nation.  This  discussion  of  what  you  call  '  the 
Jewish  problem '  is  an  impertinence  upon  your 
part.  There  is  a  Jewish  problem  indeed,  but  it  is  a 
domestic  problem,  and  we  request  you  (with  some 
asperity)  to  mind  your  own  business." 

If  this  attitude  were  sound,  the  search  for  what 
I  have  called  a  solution,  though  it  might  satisfy 
the  intelligence,  would  be  a  breach  of  civic  morals. 
In  the  same  way  it  would  be  a  breach  of  civic 
morals  for  me  to  work  out  a  solution  for  the  quarrel 
between  Mr.  Jones  and  his  mother-in-law,  neither 
of  whom  I  have  ever  met  and  with  whom  I  have  no 
relations,  and  then  to  press  this  solution  upon  the 
contending  parties.  But  the  flaw  in  this  attitude 
is  that  the  problem  is  essentially  one  involving  two 
parties,  the  Jews  and  the  non- Jews.  The  problem 
we  are  attempting  to  solve  is  a  problem  expressed 
in  terms  of  both.  Some  would  even  say  that  there 
is  hardly  a  domestic  question  within  the  Jewish 
nation  which  does  not  have  its  reaction  upon 
society  outside  it,  and  which  it  is  not  the  business  of 
that  society  outside  to  inquire  into.  That  would 
be  pressing  things  rather  far.  But  the  main 
problem  is  intimately  concerned  with  both  parties 
and  as  much  with  the  one  as  with  the  other.  It  is 
true,  indeed,  that  the  consequences  of  a  false  solu- 
tion, or  of  shirking  the  solution  altogether,  would 
be  more  acute  for  the  Jew  than  for  us:    but  we 


VARIOUS  THEORIES  287 

should  both  suffer,  and  even  on  our  side  the  suffering 
would  be  grievous. 

Even  if  there  were  no  question  of  sufleruip;  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  there  would  still  be 
the  question  of  justice.  The  Jews  who  resent  a 
statement  of  the  problem  and  an  attempt  at  solving 
it  are  not  doing  their  own  people  any  good  and  are 
at  the  same  time  denying  us  the  right  of  putting 
our  own  affairs  in  order,  which  denial  is,  of  course, 
intolerable :  for  the  position  of  the  Jews  in  our  great 
States  and  in  Islamic  society  is  something  which 
those  States  and  that  society  have  to  determine. 
They  cannot  leave  it  in  the  air.  To  some  conclusion 
they  must  come,  and  soon,  and  on  the  nature  of 
that  conclusion  depends  their  peace. 

Two  theories,  proceeding  from  very  different 
states  of  mind,  the  opposite  each  of  the  other,  but 
each  exclusive  of  any  solution,  spring  from  the  root 
idea  that  there  is  something  inexorably  malignant 
in  the  relations  between  the  Jew  and  his  surround- 
ings. In  the  one  form  this  takes  the  shape  of 
affirming  that  the  unfortunate  Jew  is  invariably 
ill-treated  by  his  wicked  hosts  and  always  will  be 
so  ill-treated.  In  the  other  it  takes  the  form  of 
saying  that  the  wicked  Jew  will  always  be  con- 
spiring and  trying  to  hurt  his  good,  kind  hosts  and 
always  will  be  so  conspiring.  In  either  case  it  is 
no  good  trying  to  find  a  solution,  for  it  is  affirmed 
that  the  quarrel  is  in  the  nature  of  things.  People 
will  say  to  one, "  Why  attempt  to  change  something 
which  cannot  be  changed  ?  Why  talk  of  your 
material  as  something  other  than  what  it  is  ? 
Cats  will  always  quarrel  with  dogs,  and  if  you 
want  to  avoid  a  quarrel  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to 
keep  the  dogs  and  cats  of  your  household  apart." 


288  THE  JEWS 

It  is  precisely  because  I  do  not  believe  either 
form  of  this  idea  to  be  true  that  I  have  sought  for  a 
solution.  I  do  not  believe  either  form  of  doctrine 
to  be  true  because  the  evidence  is  against  it.  That 
evidence  is  to  my  hand  and  can  be  examined  by 
my  own  unaided  powers,  as  it  can  be  examined 
by  any  other  person  in  our  modern  society.  I 
cannot  recollect  one  single  case  in  all  the  hundreds 
of  Jews  I  have  come  across — not  one  in  the  score 
whom  I  can  count  as  intimates — who  showed  any 
sign  of  this  malignant  hatred.  I  have  heard  many 
outbursts  of  exasperation  which,  when  we  think  of 
the  past,  are  natural  enough ;  but  of  some  persis- 
tent and  evil  desire  to  hurt  those  among  whom  they 
live,  some  instinctive  desire  unconnected  with  past 
suffering,  and  acting  as  a  sort  of  instinct,  I  have 
seen  no  trace.  If  such  were  to  be  discovered  in 
some  exceptional  Jew  out  of  a  large  acquaintance  I 
should  conclude  that  it  might  be  true  of  a  small 
minority,  but  common  sense  and  common  experience 
are  sufhcient  to  show  that  it  does  not  affect  the 
mass. 

Of  the  causes  of  friction,  even  of  acute  friction, 
which  I  have  enumerated  in  former  pages,  there  is 
the  habit  of  secrecy,  there  is  the  mutual  contempt, 
arising  in  each  from  a  sense  of  superiority  over  the 
other ;  there  is  the  quarrel  between  what  is  national 
and  what  is  international,  between  what  is  of  us 
and  what  is  alien.  There  are,  in  a  word,  plenty  of 
elements  suggesting  accidental  antagonism,  but  of 
intrinsic  antagonism  there  is  no  evidence — there  is 
no  evidence,  I  mean,  that  the  Jews  would  still 
desire  to  destroy  a  society  in  which  they  found 
themselves  at  their  ease. 

And,  if  we  examine  ourselves,  we  shall  be  equally 


VARIOUS  THEORIES  289 

convinced  that  there  is  no  corresponding  desire 
upon  our  side  to  do  a  wrong  to  the  Jew.  We  also  are 
exasperated  by  the  memory  of  insult  in  moments 
of  quarrel,  of  international  action  opposinp^  our 
national  interests  and  of  friction  between  what  is 
native  and  what  is  alien  ;  but  that  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  permanent  and  necessary  antagonism. 
I  know  very  well  what  is  called  "  modern  thought " 
gives  to  the  unconscious  part  of  man  a  large  place 
and  reduces,  as  much  as  it  can,  the  field  of  reason. 
I  cannot  agree  with  it.  It  seems  to  me  that  man 
is  essentially  rational ;  and  his  political  relations 
can  be  arranged  consonantly  with  his  conscious 
morals  and  his  conscious  logic. 

At  any  rate,  if  they  cannot,  there  is  an  end  of 
all  statesmanship  and  of  all  useful  political  action 
even  in  details. 

Next,  there  are  the  two  converse  attitudes 
towards  the  question  which  certainly  are  affecting, 
the  one  an  increasing  audience  upon  our  side  and 
the  other  perhaps  an  interested  though  but  secret 
audience  upon  the  other;  I  mean  those  two  con- 
verse theories  whereby,  on  the  one  side,  there  is  the 
Messianic  idea  of  the  Jew  ultimately  controlling 
the  world,  on  the  other  an  extreme  dread  of  that 
idea  and  a  belief  that  it  is  being  actively  pursued 
to  the  destruction  of  our  institutions  and  religion. 

I  can  understand  that,  with  the  traditions  of 
his  race  behind  him  and  with  the  tone  of  their 
sacred  writings  in  his  ears,  a  Jew  should  lean  in 
some  degree  to  such  a  conception,  or  at  any  rate 
that  some  Jews  should  lean  towards  it.  Certainly 
in  face  of  the  ridiculously  exaggerated  power  of 
the  Jews  in  recent  times  (it  is  now  declining,  for 
secrecy  was  of  its  essence  and  it  has  now  been 

u 


290  THE  JEWS 

brought  into  the  arena  of  open  discussion)  it  was 
natural  that  men  should  fall  into  the  exaggeration 
of  panic.  They  saw  the  Jew,  a  tiny  fraction  of  most 
communities,  not  more  than  a  twentieth  of  any 
community,  exercising  a  power  quite  out  of  pro- 
portion to  his  numbers  or,  indeed,  to  his  ability; 
and  they  saw  that  power  directed  towards  ends 
which  were  Jewish  ends  and  therefore  hostile  or 
indifferent  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  But  my 
reason  for  rejecting  not  only  exaggerations  of  this 
idea  but  its  fundamental  implication  is  that  it 
seems  to  me  practically  impossible.  It  connotes 
abilities  upon  the  Jewish  side,  a  continuous  will 
upon  the  Jewish  side,  both  of  which  are  obviously 
absent.  And  you  have  only  to  look  at  history 
to  see  that  long  before  things  come  to  anything 
like  a  struggle  for  supremacy  it  is  the  Jew  who 
suffers  most  from  the  suspicion  of  holding  such  a 
design,  not  we.  Indeed,  that  is  one  of  the  important 
elements  in  the  dangerous  situation  which  has 
been  created  to-day. 

That  large  and  greatly  increasing  body  of  men 
who  so  fear  Jewish  domination,  and  are  vigorously 
reacting  against  the  Jews  under  the  influence 
of  that  fear,  are  much  more  likely  to  end  with 
injustice  to  the  Jew  than  with  subservience  to 
him.  It  is  from  this  atmosphere  that  the  great 
misfortunes  of  the  past  have  arisen.  It  is  of  the 
essence  of  any  solution  that  this  mood  should  be 
exorcised  upon  the  one  side  as  upon  the  other. 

There  is  another  theory  which  I  have  read  of  in 
more  than  one  learned  Jewish  treatise  and  which 
has  been  repeated  (after  Jewish  authors  themselves 
had  launched  it)  by  many  non- Jewish  societies  and 
historians,  to  the  effect  that  the  very  survival  of 


VARIOUS  THEORIES  291 

the  Jews,  their  very  existence  as  a  separate  com- 
munity, was  due  to  conditions  common  in  the  past, 
now  (lisappoared,  and  tliat  therefore  the  present 
difficulties  can  safely  be  left  to  time. 

This  is,  of  course,  to  make  the  general  assertion 
that  the  Jewish  race  can  be  absorbed,  and  that 
absorption  is  the  solution.  That  conclusion  I 
summarily  rejected  in  the  earlier  pages  of  this  book 
on  the  historical  ground  that  it  has  had  the  most 
favourable  circumstances  for  success  and  yet  has 
always  failed.  But  in  the  particular  case  stated 
it  has  an  argument  of  its  own  and  one  needing 
very  special  examination :  it  is  this : — 

Those  who  defend  this  theory  tell  us  that  however 
favourable  the  opportunities  for  absorption  were  in 
the  past  they  are  nothhig  to  the  opportunities  of 
the  present  and  the  future,  and  that  therefore  the 
argument  from  history  fails.  In  the  past  (they 
tell  us)  the  Jews  were  exclusive  and  even  made  of 
their  exclusiveness  a  religion.  They  on  their  side 
mixed  as  little  as  possible  with  the  Morld  around 
them  and  we  on  our  side  maintained  that  exclusion 
by  an  equal  insistence  upon  the  difference  between 
ourselves  and  them.  We  had  in  those  days,  it  is 
maintained,  a  religion  based  upon  the  Incarnation 
and  therefore  abhorrent  to  the  Jew ;  that  religion 
is  dead  or  dying,  and  with  it  the  tendency  to  exclu- 
sion from  outside  has  disappeared ;  while  on  the 
Jewish  side  there  is  also  a  great  weakening  of  the 
old  religious  bond,  less  of  the  old  Messianic  dogma, 
and  on  both  sides  the  enormous  melting-pot  ^  that 
makes  for  absorption  with  an  intensity  and  rapidity 

1  I  borrow  the  metaplior  from  Mr.  Zangwill,  who  applied 
it  to  New  York  particularly.  1  apply  it  to  the  whole  modern 
industrial  world. 


U 


* 


292  THE  JEWS 

quite  unknown  in  the  past.  It  was  one  thing  to 
absorb  the  Jew  when  it  took  a  month  to  go  as  an 
ordinary  traveller  from  London  to  Rome,  it  is 
another  thing  when  it  takes  three  days.  It  was 
one  thing  to  absorb  the  Jew  when  in  the  greater 
part  of  cases  there  was  a  bar  to  the  mixing  of  the 
races,  based  upon  the  nerves  of  religion,  it  is  quite 
another  thing  to  absorb  the  Jew  when  those  most 
powerful  of  emotional  forces  have  disappeared — 
and  so  forth. 

Now  the  reasons  which  bring  me  to  reject  this 
theory  are  two- fold. 

In  the  first  place,  I  think  it  exaggerates  the 
contrast  between  the  past  and  the  present.  In  the 
second  place,  I  know  that  in  the  actual  world  before 
me  and  precisely  under  those  conditions  where  the 
fusion,  the  action  of  the  "  melting-pot,"  ought  to 
be  most  complete,  the  most  violent  reaction  against 
absorption  is  to  be  observed. 

As  to  the  contrast  between  the  past  and  the 
present,  I  think  it  is  based  upon  an  imperfect 
apprehension  of  what  our  past  has  been.  It  comes 
of  that  "telescoping  up"  of  history  to  which  I 
alluded  in  another  connection  in  my  second  chapter. 

The  long  story  of  our  race  between  the  Roman 
occupation  of  Judaea  and  the  modern  local  and 
ephemeral  industrial  phase  of  the  great  modern 
towns  is  not  divided  into  two  chapters,  the  strange 
past  and  the  comprehensible  present.  It  is  much 
of  a  muchness.  The  constant  developments  which 
astonish  us  to-day  in  physical  science,  for  instance, 
are  not  more  remarkable  than  the  vast  new  develop- 
ments in  architecture  and  philosophy  which  marked 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  The  dis- 
turbance of  thought  which  may  be  called  "  modern 


VARIOUS  THEORIES  293 

scepticism"  is  not  anything  like  so  important 
a  spiritual  change  as  that  tremendous  revolution 
which  we  call  the  conversion  of  the  J^oman  Empire. 
The  area  of  scepticism  is  not  larger  to-day  than  it 
has  been  in  many  special  periods  of  the  past.  The 
feeling  of  strong  religious  emotion  which  forbids 
this  or  that  action  is  still  present  among  us,  some- 
times attached  to  its  older  objects,  sometimes  (as 
in  the  craze  for  prohibition)  to  some  novel  object. 
The  indiilerence  which  you  will  fmd  to  the  parti- 
cular religious  barrier  between  Jew  and  non-Jew 
is  not  peculiar  to  our  times.  It  has  come  and  gone 
in  the  past ;  after  a  wave  of  such  indifference  you 
have  had  a  wave  of  the  most  acute  reaction,  and  I 
think  you  are  observing  a  wave  of  such  reaction 
to-  day. 

Nor  do  I  see  how  the  rapidity  of  mere  physical 
communications  affects  the  matter,  nor  even  how 
the  volume  of  emigration  affects  the  matter.  You 
can  get  a  million  Jews  from  Lithuania  to  New 
York — a  distance  of  5,000  miles — in  less  time  than 
you  could  get  a  million  Jews  from  the  Valley  of 
the  Rhine  into  Poland  some  centuries  ago;  but 
the  million  Jews  seem  to  remain  Jews  just  the 
same  under  modern  conditions  as  they  did  in  the 
past.  Indeed,  the  toleration  of  Jews,  the  friendly 
reception  of  them,  and  therefore  the  opportunities 
for  their  absorption  were  indefinitely  greater  in 
mediaeval  Poland  than  they  are  in  modern  America. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  whole  of  this  part  of  the 
argument  is  based  upon  that  prevalent  view  of 
history  which  comes  from  reading  our  little  modern 
text-books:  and  our  little  modern  text- books  are 
very  rubbishy.  It  is  a  view  which  comes  from 
that  absurd  emphasis  upon  w^hatever  is  contempo- 


294  THE  JEWS 

rary.  The  modern  advance  of  physical  science  is 
regarded  as  having  totally  changed  the  world 
inwardly  as  well  as  outwardly.  We  have  only  to 
look  at  the  modern  world  and  to  compare  it  with 
any  two  distant,  special  periods  we  know,  to 
discover  that  the  difference  between  any  pair  of 
these  three  is  equally  striking.  In  many  ways 
the  modern  world  is  much  more  like  the  world 
of  the  Antonines  than  it  is  like  the  world  of  Innocent 
the  Great.  In  many  ways  the  world  of  Innocent 
the  Great  is  much  more  like  the  Roman  Empire 
than  the  modern  world.  In  many  ways  the  world 
of  Innocent  the  Great  and  our  world  have  more 
in  common  than  either  has  with  the  pagan  Roman 
Empire,  The  general  lesson  is,  therefore,  that  our 
time,  with  all  its  remarkable  specialities,  is  but  one 
specimen  out  of  a  great  number  equally  individual, 
and  certainly  there  is  nothing  in  it  either  of  religious 
scepticism  breaking  down  old  religious  barriers  or 
of  rapidity  of  communication,  or  of  any  other 
fundamental  factor,  which  specially  suggests  the 
absorption  of  the  Jew. 

For  instance,  the  Jews  mixed  much  more  readily, 
on  a  much  more  equal  footing  and  with  far  less 
friction  among  the  Mohammedans  at  particular 
periods  during  the  Islamic  occupation  of  Spain 
than  they  do  even  in  England  to-day.  Yet  they 
were  not  absorbed  there,  any  more  than  they  were 
absorbed  in  Poland.  They  were  not  absorbed 
into  that  older,  tolerant,  very  denationalized  pagan 
Roman  world  where  they  so  often  had  full  civic 
rights  and  where  they  even  manipulated,  as  they 
manipulate  to-day,  the  finances  of  the  community. 

As  for  the  decay  of  exclusiveness  on  their  part,  I 
gee  no  sign  of  it.     For  this  exclusiveness  proceeds 


VARIOUS  THEORIES  296 

not  so  niucli  from  a  paiticukir  observance  wliich 
may  relax  at  one  period  and  tighten  up  at  another, 
as  from  an  invariable  national  tradition  which 
fluctuates  in  intensity  but  never  sinks  so  low  as 
to  jeopardize  the  continuance  of  the  people. 

If  we  turn  from  argument  to  observation,  the 
falsity  of  the  theory  stares  us  in  the  face.  We 
have  but  to  take  one  point,  where  the  metaphor 
of  the  "  melting-pot"  most  applies  (and  to  which 
it  w^as  originally  applied),  the  city  of  New  York. 
What  has  been  the  effect  of  this  great  influx  of 
Jews  into  New  York,  this  turning  of  New  York 
into  a  city  a  third  Jewish  under  our  eyes  and  in 
so  short  a  space  of  time  ?  As  w^e  all  know,  the 
effect  has  been  the  uprising,  in  that  once  indifTcrent 
atmosphere,  of  such  a  feeling  against  the  Jews  as 
would  appal  us  did  we  see  it  in  the  Old  World. 
It  is  red  hot.  It  is  an  intense  reaction  expressing 
itself  with  greater  and  greater  violence  every  day ; 
and  the  spirit  of  that  reaction  cannot  be  better 
expressed  than  in  a  phrase  which  we  owe,  I  think, 
to  Mr.  Ford  and  his  famous  propaganda  against 
the  Jews,  through  his  paper  the  "  Dearborn  Inde- 
pendent." "  It  is  all  very  well  to  talk  of  the  melting- 
pot,"  says  he,  "but  so  far  from  the  Jew^s  melting 
in  that  pot,  it  looks  as  tJiough  they  wanted  to  melt 
the  pot  itself.''^ 

There  you  have,  in  New  York,  if  anpvhere,  an 
opportunity  for  the  theory  of  absorption  to  prove 
itself.  You  have  present  in  the  field  a  score  of 
different  races,  including  great  masses  of  a  race 
so  utterly  different  from  ours  as  the  negro.  You 
have  a  certain  small  proportion  of  Chinamen  and 
you  have  of  European  stocks  an  indefinite  variety 
— most  of  them  in  large  numbers.     You  have  not 


296  THE  JEWS 

only  in  local  establishments  or  even  only  in  civic 
theory,  but  in  actual  practice — in  enthusiastic 
practice — a  complete  equality  and  a  positive  pride 
in  the  reception  of  no  matter  what  elements  of 
immigration,  in  the  certitude  that  all  can  rapidly 
be  moulded  into  the  American  form.  Most  of  these 
elements  were  absorbed,  and  absorbed  rapidly; 
where  they  were  not  absorbed  there  was  at  least 
peace  between  them.  Then  arrives  the  Jew  and 
a  totally  new  situation  at  once  appears.  A  situa- 
tion of  challenge,  of  provocation,  of  admitted 
exclusion,  of  violent  debate  and  even  of  clamour: 
but  no  sign  of  absorption.  In  presence  of  all  the 
elements  that  should  make  for  absorption,  difference 
and  hatred  between  Jew  and  non-Jew  is  growing 
in  New  York  with  the  vitality  of  a  tropical  plant. 

There  is  yet  another  theory  which,  if  it  were  not 
widely  held  and  if  it  had  not  been  advanced  by 
so  many  Jews  themselves,  I  should  leave  aside  as 
something  comic,  something  unfit  for  serious  dis- 
cussion. But  it  has  been  advanced  and  it  must  be 
met.  It  is  no  less  than  the  theory  that  there  are 
no  such  people  as  the  Jews,  that  the  whole  thing 
is  illusion. 

This  monstrous  affirmation  is  based,  I  need 
hardly  say,  upon  what  is  called  a  "scientific" 
examination  of  the  affair :  for  that  word  "  scientific  " 
has  come  to  be  associated  with  every  kind  of 
unreason.  Men,  especially  Jewish  men,  have  been 
found  to  affirm  most  solemnly  that  they  had 
measured  skulls,  taken  sections  of  hair,  catalogued 
the  colours  of  eyes,  established  facial  angles,  ana- 
lysed blood,  and  applied  I  know  not  how  many  other 
tricks,  with  the  result  that  no  Jewish  type  could 
be  discovered !     People  who  can  reason  thus  do 


VARIOUS  THEORIES  297 

not  seem  to  appreciate  the  fundamental  quarrel 
between  nominalism  and  realism,  or  to  have  heard 
of  the  old  philosophic  joke  on  the  defmition  of 
"  a  thing." 

We  know  a  horse  to  be  a  horse,  an  apple  to  be 
an  apple,  a  Chinaman  to  be  a  Chinaman,  or  a  Jew 
to  be  a  Jew  by  some  process  on  which  philosophers 
can  debate,  but  upon  the  virtue  of  which  no  sane 
man  doubts  and  upon  the  right  action  of  which 
we  base  all  our  lives.  The  chemist  may  tell  me  that 
the  chemical  analysis  of  a  lump  of  coal  gives  the 
same  result  as  the  chemical  analysis  of  a  diamond, 
to  which  any  man  capable  of  using  his  reason  at 
all  will  reply  that  upon  a  very  large  number  of 
other  lines  of  analysis,  colour,  touch,  combustibility, 
hardness  and  softness,  economic  value,  prevalence 
(and  so  on  indefinitely),  the  two  are  7io<  the  same. 
No  analysis  is  complete,  and  if  we  had  made  no 
conscious  analysis  at  all,  we  could  still  perceive 
at  once  that  a  lump  of  coal  is  not  a  diamond. 

It  is  just  the  same  with  these  pseudo- scientific 
attempts  to  disprove  obvious  truth.  They  pullu- 
late and  they  are  all  equally  ridiculous  because 
they  deduce  from  insufficient  data.  The  existence 
and  differentiation  of  the  Jewish  people  as  a  race 
ethnically  and  as  a  nation  politically  is  as  much 
a  fact  as  the  existence  of  coal  or  diamonds.  They 
are  a  nation  politically  because  they  act  as  a  nation, 
because  their  individual  members  feel  and  exercise 
a  corporate  function.  We  know  them  to  be  a 
separate  race  because  we  can  see  that  they  are. 
When  you  meet  a  Jew,  whether  you  are  his  enemy 
or  his  friend,  you  meet  a  Jew.  He  has  a  certain 
expression,  a  certain  manner,  certain  physical 
characteristics  which  you  may  not  be  able  to  analyse 


298  THE  JEWS 

at  the  moment  you  see  Jhim,  but  which  give  you  the 
impression  and  the  certitude  that  you  are  dealing 
with  a  particular  thing,  to  wit,  the  Jewish  race. 
It  is  true,  of  course,  that  the  type,  like  all  general 
types,  fades  off  at  the  edges,  and  there  will  always 
be  cases  where  you  may  be  in  doubt  of  whether 
you  are  dealing  with  a  Jew  or  with  a  non-Jew, 
but  there  is  a  marked  central  tyipe  round  which 
the  Jewish  racial  type  is  built  up.  That  is  as 
certain  as  that  there  is  a  Mongolian  type,  or  a 
negroid  type,  and  so  forth. 

I  do  not  take  the  objection  very  seriously.  I 
only  note  it  because  it  has  been  made,  and  may 
crop  up  in  the  course  of  any  discussion  on  this 
grave  political  issue. 


HABIT   OR  LAW? 


CHAPTER  XV 

HABIT  OR  LAW  ? 

If  it  be  true  that  the  friction  between  the  Jew  and 
the  civilization  in  whicli  he  lives  is  aggravated  by 
his  habit  of  secrecy  and  by  our  disingenuousness, 
by  his  expression  of  a  sense  of  superiority  which 
galls  us,  and  on  our  side  by  a  lack  of  charity  and 
of  intelligence  in  dealing  with  him,  it  would  follow 
that  no  solution  can  be  more  than  approximate : 
that  whatever  arrangement  be  come  to  the  con- 
trast will  remain,  and  with  it  a  certain  latent 
friction,  which  always  accompanies  contrast. 

But  there  is  between  a  simmering  of  that  kind 
and  the  active  boiling  of  the  question  to-day  (with 
the  threat  of  its  boiling  over)  all  the  difference  in 
the  world.  But  even  though  the  solution  be  imper- 
fect, it  might  be  reasonably  stable :  we  might  at 
least  have  peace,  though  not  friendship.  It  further 
follows  from  the  elements  of  the  problem  that  the 
solution  lies  along  the  lines  of  either  party  modify- 
ing whatever  in  its  action  is  an  irritant  to  the  other ; 
whatever,  that  is,  can  be  modified  by  the  will,  and 
is  not  mixed  up  with  something  ineradicable. 

The  Jew  cannot  help  feeling  superior,  but  he 
can  help  the  expression  of  that  superiority — at  any 
rate  he  can  modify  such  expression.  He  can  cer- 
tainly, though  it  be  at  a  great  expense  of  tradition 

301 


302  THE  JEWS 

and  habit,  get  rid  of  that  pestilent  pseudo- defence 
of  secrecy  which  poisons  all  the  relations  between 
him  and  ourselves.  We  on  our  side  can  drop  what 
is  the  converse  of  that  secrecy,  the  disingenuousness, 
the  lack  of  candour,  into,  which  we  are  fallen  in 
our  relations  with  the  Jew.  That  cannot  but  mean 
a  great  breach  with  our  tradition  and  with  habit 
also,  but  the  advantage  is  worth  the  sacrifice.  We 
can  (it  must  be  the  work  of  each  individual,  it 
cannot  be  a  corporate  work)  approach  the  Jew  with 
more  respect  and  yet  with  more  frequency.  We 
can,  I  think,  advance  by  many  degrees  from  the 
lack  of  charity  we  now  show,  even  if  we  despair  of 
living  in  real  intimacy  with  a  people  so  different  in 
their  deepest  qualities  from  ourselves. 

Personally,  I  am  not  sure  that  such  closer 
intunacy  might  not  be  established ;  I  have  never 
found  any  difficulty  in  reaching  and  retaining 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  Jews  of  my  own 
circle — but  I  may  have  been  fortunate.  I  know 
that  with  most  of  my  fellows  it  is  not  so,  and  per- 
haps the  Jew  will  always  remain  to  the  mass  of 
those  about  him  something  strange  and  unapproach- 
able, and  I  fear,  repulsive.  But  there  is  no  reason, 
why  we  should  mix  with  that  hesitation  in  our 
relations  an  element  of  indifference,  still  less  of 
contempt,  still  less,  again,  of  cruelty. 

I  repeat  the  formula  for  a  solution:  it  is 
recognition  and  respect. 

Recognition  is  here  no  more  than  the  telling  of 
the  truth:  there  is  a  Jewish  nation.  Jews  are 
citizens  of  that  nation ;  and  recognition  means  not 
only  the  telling  of  this  truth  on  special  occasions 
but  the  use  of  it  as  a  regular  habit  in  our  relations 
on  both  sides. 


HABIT  OR  LAW?  303 

This  statement  is,  upon  any  just  analysis  of  the 
Jewish  question,  so  obvious  and  so  simple,  that  it 
needs  neither  insistence  upon  it  nor  development. 
Its  plain  statement  is  sufficient.  But  there  attaches 
to  a  solution  so  determined  a  much  more  active 
and  complicated  question,  upon  the  uncertainty 
of  which  not  only  this  reform  but  many  another 
has  made  shipwreck.  The  question  nuist  be 
answered  rightly,  because,  if  we  answer  it  wrongly, 
the  whole  scheme  fails. 

The  question  is  this :  Should  the  social  haljit, 
the  general  method  in  writing  and  speaking  and  in 
all  relations,  precede  in  this  case  the  institutional 
action,  legal  changes,  constitutional  definitions  ? 
Or  should  the  legal  changes,  the  new  institutions, 
the  constitutional  definitions  come  first  ? 

To  decide  rightly  is  of  great  moment,  for  this 
reason,  that  a  wrong  decision  may  destroy  all  the 
effect  of  goodwill. 

In  my  judgment  the  wrong  decision  would  be 
that  which  would  give  precedence  to  legal  change, 
to  new  definitions,  to  new  institutions,  and  attempt 
out  of  them  to  build  a  new  spirit.  I  take  it  that 
this  reversal  of  the  true  order  would  make  all 
stable  peace  impossible. 

It  must  be  admitted,  of  course,  that  changes 
suggested  by  the  Jews  themselves,  the  development 
of  their  own  institutions,  a  voluntary  segregation  of 
their  community  in  other  fields  than  those  in  which 
they  have  already  effected  that  segregation,  stand 
in  another  category.  These  new  and  definitely 
Jewish  institutions  we  should  always  welcome. 
But  the  attempt  at  framing  public  regulations, 
which  are  to  defend  the  community  as  a  whole 
against  an  alien  minority,  when  that  minority  must 


304  THE  JEWS 

live  with  one  permanently  and  as  a  regular  feature 
of  the  life  of  the  community,  invariably  tends  to 
oppression,  if  such  regulations  are  made  the  first 
steps  in  a  settlement  instead  of  being  left,  as  they 
should  be,  to  the  last.  Any  separatist  legislation 
should  arise  naturally  out  of  a  long  practice  and 
full  recognition  of  the  Jews  as  a  separate  people 
and  of  the  accompaniment  of  that  recognition  with 
respect.  If  the  advance  is  made  on  our  side,  the 
Jew  may  refuse  any  such  bargain.  He  may  dig 
his  heels  in  and  insist,  as  many  another  privileged 
class  has  insisted  before  him,  that  he  will  continue 
to  enjoy  all  that  he  has  ever  enjoyed,  that  he  will 
continue  his  demand  for  a  dual  allegiance,  that  he 
will  insist  on  the  very  fullest  recognition  as  a  Jew, 
and  at  the  same  time  on  what  is  fatal  to  such 
recognition,  the  fullest  recognition  as  a  member  of 
our  own  community. 

If  he  does  tliat  (and  there  are  those  who  tell  us 
he  will  certainly  do  so,  and  will  refuse  all  reform), 
then  the  community  will  be  compelled  to  legislate 
in  spite  of  him.  It  will  be  perilous  for  him  and 
for  us ;  it  may  even  be  the  beginning  of  grievous 
trouble  for  both,  but  it  will  be  inevitable.  It  will 
appear  in  a  mass  of  legislation  all  over  Europe, 
which  will  affect  this  country  with  the  rest. 

The  present  situation  cannot  last  indefinitely. 
It  is  already  uncertain  even  here,  in  England ;  it 
has  reached  further  stages  on  the  road  to  ruin 
elsewhere.  But  if  the  Jew  sees  the  peril  in  time, 
and  appreciates  the  nature  of  that  change,  the 
beginnings  of  which  we  have  all  seen  and  which  is 
proceeding  at  so  great  a  pace,  then  relations  can 
be  established  out  of  which  (later)  formal  rules, 
acceptable  to  both  parties,  should  proceed.     And  in 


HABIT   OR  LAW?  305 

that  case  it  would  be,  I  repeat,  the  gravest  of  errors 
to  initiate  new  positive  hiws  and  a  new  status 
before  a  foundation  had  boon  prepared  by  the 
re-establislinient  of  lionost  relations;  and  that  can 
only  be  done  by  a  frank  admission  of  reality,  by 
the  open  and  continual  admission  everywhere 
that  Israel  is  a  nation  apart,  is  not,  and  cannot 
be,  of  us,  and  shall  not  be  confounded  with  our- 
selves. 

There  is  great  temptation  to  delay,  because  the 
acuteness  of  the  problem  is  not  felt  here  as  yet, 
among  the  well-to-do,  and  still  more  because  it 
diilers  in  different  communities.  The  peril  seems 
still  far  distant  from  us,  though  it  may  be  at  the 
very  door  of  our  neighbours.  Routine,  the  inherit- 
ance of  the  immediate  past,  the  false  security 
produced  by  the  conventions  of  that  past,  may  well 
tempt  those  who  dislike  the  effort  of  a  change  to 
shirk  that  change.  But  I  would  ask  any  intelligent 
and  thoughtful  Jew  who  still  thinks  he  can  rely 
upon  the  false  position  of  the  nineteenth  century 
whether  the  same  forces  are  there  to  support  him 
to-day  as  were  present  then  ? 

Take  a  particular  example.  In  Poland  and  in 
Roumania  the  old  fiction  has  been  temporarily  im- 
posed by  force.  The  Jew,  who  in  both  these  countries 
is  felt  to  be  more  alien  than  any  other  foreign 
European  could  be,  is  imposed  upon  the  Govern- 
ment and  society  of  each  country  by  the  Western 
Governments  as  a  full  citizen.  The  strain  here  is 
immensely  aggravated  because  it  arose  not  from  the 
nature  of  society  but  from  the  action  of  outsiders ; 
the  English,  the  French,  the  American  Govern- 
ments (but  particularly  the  American  and  the 
English)    have   erected   in   Eastern  Europe  this 


306  THE   JEWS 

unstable,  unjust  and  artificial  state  of  affairs. 
It   cannot  last,   for  it  is  unreal. 

The  communities  in  question  may  make  no  laws 
which  recognize  the  Jew;  alternatively,  the  door 
is  open  for  oppression :  and  the  moment  the  hated 
foreign  interference  weakens,  oppression  will  come. 

Well,  when  under  the  pressure  of  a  real 
social  difficulty  and  a  crucial  one,  the  unreal  settle- 
ment is  torn  up,  by  the  passing  of  new  laws 
recognizing  the  Jew  (but  harshly,  and  under  no 
agreement  with  him)  or  by  actual  hostility,  does 
the  Jew  in  his  heart  of  hearts  think  that  he  would 
have  the  same  support  from  the  West  now  as  he 
would  have  had  thirty  years  ago  ?  He  knows  very 
well  he  would  not. 

Thirty  years  ago  you  would  have  got  from  all 
the  traditional  Liberalism  of  France,  from  the 
great  bulk  of  its  governing  class  and  the  whole  of 
its  academic  organization,  from  what  was  then  the 
solid  and  still  respected  body  of  old  Republicans, 
an  immediate  answer  to  the  Jewish  appeal.  In 
England  that  answer  would  have  been  unanimous 
and  enthusiastic.  You  would  have  had  torrents 
of  leading  articles,  great  public  meetings,  Cabinet 
Ministers  speechifying  all  over  the  place  in  the 
sacred  cause  of  toleration.  Every  one  knows  that 
to-day  the  appeal  of  the  Eastern  Jews,  though  it 
might  still  be  supported  officially,  would  be  received 
by  the  public  with  indifference.  Ten  years  hence 
it  may  be  received  with  derision. 

Or  take  another  example.  Let  us  suppose — it 
is  highly  probable — that  the  Zionist  experiment 
breaks  down,  that  Englishmen  refuse  to  have  their 
soldiers'  lives  risked  in  a  quarrel  which  is  not  their 
own  and  refuse  to  support  out  of  their  inordinate 


HABIT   OR  LAW?  307 

taxation  a  top-heavy  colony  which  gives  lliem 
no  advantage  and  concerns  them  not  at  all.  On 
the  breakdown  of  that  oxperinicnt,  should  it  come 
soon,  would  there  still  he  the  su])port  for  its  re- 
establishment  that  you  would  have  had  even  ten 
years  ago  ?  There  certainly  would  not.  Ten 
years  hence  it  is  probable  enough  that  you  would 
get,  not  indifference  to  such  re-establishment,  but 
the  most  active  hostility.  All  over  the  world  the 
stream  has  turned  in  the  same  direction. 

Unfortunately  the  effect  of  that  change  has  been 
to  excite  hatred  rather  than  a  desire  for  a  settle- 
ment and  to  move  men  towards  blind  action  rather 
than  towards  a  reasoned  examination  of  the  diffi- 
culty. That  is  why  the  thing  seems  to  me  urgent, 
although  there  are  still  large  areas  of  Western  society 
in  which  its  urgency  is  masked  and  half  forgotten. 

W^hen  I  say  "  urgent "  I  mean  that  this  my 
essay,  which  is  to-day  still  to  the  point,  and  the 
solution  recommended  in  which  is  still  feasible, 
may  very  well,  within  the  lifetime  of  its  writer, 
become  old-fashioned  out  of  all  recognition.  The 
peaceful  settlement  here  proposed  with  deliberate 
vagueness  and  softness  of  outline  may  seem  in  a  few 
years  as  out  of  date,  as  unreal  through  the  interven- 
ing change,  as  do  to-day  the  old  tags  about  the 
purity  of  parliamentary  life  and  the  seriousness 
of  party  politics. 

My  solution  may  appear  at  the  end  of  this  genera- 
tion as  mildly  inapplicable  to  the  acute  situation 
then  arisen  between  the  Jews  and  ourselves  as 
appear  to-day  the  old  debates  on  the  very  tentative 
demand  for  Home  Rule  in  the  '80's.  Let  us  act 
as  soon  as  possible  and  settle  the  thing  while  there 
is  yet  time.     For  in  the  swirl  and  rapids  of  the 


308  THE  JEWS 

modern  world,  whicli  grow  not  less  as  towards 
a  calm,  but  more  intense  as  towards  a  cataract, 
every  great  debate  takes  on  with  every  year 
a  stronger  form,  a  nearer  approach  to  conflict; 
and  none  more  than  the  immemorial  debate,  still 
unconcluded,  between  Islam  and  Christendom  and 
the  Beni- Israel. 

But  for  my  part,  I  say,  "  Peace  be  to  Israel." 


Printed  in  Great  Britain  by  Butler  &  Tanner,  Frome  and  London. 


UNrVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


;-l!BRARY(. 

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